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IRELAND, 



THE IRISH CHURCH: 



PAST AND PRESENT STATE, AND FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



BY THE 

RIGHT HON. LORD VISCOUNT LIFFORD. 



LONDON: 

JOHN OLLIVIER, PUBLISHER, 59 PALL MALL. 

SOLD BY SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., 
stationers' HALL COURT. 

M.DCCC.XLII. 






LONDON: 
PRINTED BY NUTTALL AND HODGSON, GOUGH SQUARF, 
FLEET STREET. 



PREFACE. 



A considerable portion of the following 
pages have been written five or six years ; and 
the subject of them has occasionally occupied 
the author's attention a much longer period. 

It seemed strange, that although Ireland has 
been contemplated with deep, it may be said, with 
affectionate interest by British statesmen of all 
parties for above forty years, no progress seemed 
to be made in conciliating her Roman Catholic- 
population. During that period great commercial 
advantages were conceded to her. First, free 
trade with England in corn was given to her, and 
various other concessions followed, which were at 
last completed by her being acknowledged as an 
integral part of the kingdom, and her trade con- 
sidered and treated as a coasting trade, which 



IV PREFACE. 

opened the British markets to the whole of her 
produce. Wealth has increased no doubt in con- 
sequence, but contentment has not followed ; and 
in the South, peace and security seem as remote 
as ever. The conciliating policy of one adminis- 
tration, amounting almost to timidity, and by 
the Protestants often contemplated as injustice, 
seemed to produce no other effect than praise, of 
which the sincerity did not seem quite certain, 
and was even less efficacious in producing peace, 
and giving security, than the more vigorous pro- 
ceedings of some of their predecessors. It would 
appear, therefore, that those who influenced the 
majority of the lower orders had something in 
view which could not yet be confessed, which was 
extrinsic of the peace and prosperity of the 
country ; which it was the object, as it was no 
doubt the interest, of the Government to promote; 
and which the peculiar circumstances of the 
country made it impossible to concede. The evil 
appeared not to have been contemplated in its 
full extent ; and the reference sometimes made to 
foreign countries, where the monarch and his 
people differed on the subject of religion, led to 



PREFACE, 



the supposition that a mistake had been made in 
considering any of those cases analogous to the 
circumstances of Ireland, where not only the 
monarch and the majority of the other governing 
powers, differ from a large proportion of the 
people ; but what is more important, the owners 
of the soil, the holders of property, and one half 
of the population of a whole province, are of a 
different religion from the majority in the other 
three provinces. This mistake would partly 
account for the failure, by shewing that the 
Government of Ireland experiences difficulties 
which are not met with in any other country 
in the world. It is true the Rhenish provinces 
of Prussia are Roman Catholic, and the Govern- 
ment is zealously and sincerely Protestant ; but 
in these provinces the great proprietors are 
almost exclusively Roman Catholic. The cases 
are not therefore analogous ; and if they were in 
other respects, it is not pretended that a distinc- 
tion could be made between the province of 
Ulster and the other provinces of Ireland. Nor 
does it appear so certain as was supposed, that a 
perfect harmony exists between the Romish 
a 3 



VI PREFACE. 

hierarchy on the Rhine and the king's govern- 
ment. 

Another difficulty arises from Ireland having 
been governed, subsequently to the rebellion of 
1641, till about fifty years ago, under the 
influence of a Parliament elected solely by the 
Protestants, with a view almost exclusively to the 
promotion of Protestantism, Their measures, 
not always the most justifiable, were seldom the 
most prudent ; but, in consequence, strange con- 
trasts are exhibited between the proceedings and 
even the pledges of those days, and the policy of 
modern times; a disposition was cultivated in 
former times among the Protestant population, 
which has been treated as criminal at a later 
period, without any great pains being taken to 
reconcile them to the difference. 

Since Ireland has been a subject of interest, 
much has been said of the wrongs of Ireland ; and 
she has a fearful account to bring against England 
of former injustice. But it has seldom occurred 
to those who would redress these wrongs, that 
they originated in the desire of the English con- 
querors to establish the Romish religion ; and that 



PREFACE. Vll 

the English conquest itself emanated from the 
Roman Pontiff, whose great object it was to 
establish the religion of Rome in the other pro- 
vinces, as fully and devotedly as it had been for 
some time established in the Danish colony of 
Leinster and its dependencies. This led the 
Author to an investigation of what was the reli- 
gion of the ancient Irish ? a much debated ques- 
tion ; and the result of the research will be found 
in the following pages. These considerations 
were naturally followed by a review of the steps 
taken to effect a reformation of the Church both 
in England and Ireland ? and it is hoped that the 
result will satisfy a candid inquirer, that the 
Church is not, in either country, the creation of 
an Act of Parliament ; but, on the contrary, that 
the Reformation was the work of the proper eccle- 
siastical authorities, in the early stages of which 
the most prominent Roman Catholic authorities 
fully concurred. 

It was with great satisfaction, that the Author 
found, in the course of these inquiries, that 
the first attempt at a milder and more just 
course of proceeding towards the Irish, fol- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

lowed immediately after the Reformation; 
shewing that sound principles and true religion 
produced their proper fruits,— that love of man 
which the Scripture represents as inseparable 
from a real love of God. It is true, this benefi- 
cent spirit was checked by the rebellion of 1641, 
and a different policy arose from the contest for 
the Crown subsequent to the Revolution of 1688 ; 
but religion had declined during the same period, 
and with its revival arose a desire to benefit the 
Irish people. A long course of neglect, and cen- 
turies of misgovernment, however, had made the 
task infinitely difficulty and still imposes difficul- 
ties which time alone can remove. England 
forced the Roman Catholic religion on the Irish ; 
and when she proposed to them the Reformation, 
she took no pains to instruct them ; but, on the 
contrary, addressed them in a language which not 
only they did not understand, but against which 
they had many, and not unfounded, prejudices. 
For a long time they were not admitted to the 
same commercial advantages as the sister country ; 
and the poverty, which was the natural conse- 
quence of these restrictions, has divided her popu- 



PREFACE. IX 

lation into two classes, and deprived property of 
the security which it enjoys in England from the 
imperceptible gradations of society ; a circum- 
stance to which England is more indebted than 
possibly may at first sight appear ; and of which, 
among her manufacturing population, there is 
great danger she may be deprived ; as in a short 
time, in the manufacturing districts, there will 
only be the great manufacturer and the operative ; 
enormous wealth and squalid poverty ; a contrast 
which must be injurious to that good understand- 
ing and good feeling which should exist between 
the different gradations of society, and must make 
the happiness of both classes depend upon what 
can rarely be expected, the existence of great for- 
bearance, under privation, on one side, and great 
moderation, with abundant charity, on the other; 
whereas, when society is divided by imperceptible 
gradations, it enjoys all the advantages, without 
the disadvantages, of equality ; as the different 
degrees are in the agricultural districts in England 
so intermixed as to give mutual support and a 
feeling of mutual interest. 

If the view taken of the state of Ireland, in the 
following pages, is in any degree correct, she does 



PREFACE. 



not require powerful remedies ; on the contrary 
they will be injurious to her ; she requires repose. 
The most beneficial change would be injurious 
if it were to be effected by agitation, and by ex- 
citing dispositions already too prone to excitement. 
She wants patience on the part of of her Govern- 
ment. No remedies they can apply will remove the 
difficulties she labours under. They cannot make 
those who possess the property, and those who 
in the three Provinces are the numerical majority, 
of one religion ; they cannot change the character 
of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who, separated 
by the policy of that Church from secular ties, 
have only in view its aggrandizement. The Go- 
vernment cannot reconcile their pretensions with 
the claims of the Protestant proprietors, or the 
engagements of former Governments ; they must 
wait till these pretensions are found impracticable ; 
and in the meantime outrage must be prevented, 
and agitation discountenanced. The people also 
must have patience ; they must shew consideration 
for the difficulties experienced by their Government. 
The Roman Catholics must moderate their un- 
reasonable expectations; and the Protestants must 
not impute a desire to encourage Roman Catholic 



PREFACE. XI 

insubordination to the efforts made for exercising 
impartial justice. 

Every act of the Government is viewed in 
a quite different light by the two parties into 
which Ireland is divided. They must be 
aware of this, that they may not give ground 
for the imputation of partiality. But the parties 
themselves must endeavour candidly to interpret 
the acts of the Government. When official Eng- 
lishmen first go to Ireland, they reside in a Roman 
Catholic part of Ireland, and they naturally con- 
sider it a Roman Catholic country. This is a 
great mistake. But, on the other hand, Protes- 
tants, who fifty years ago were alone considered, 
and with whose ancestors serious obligations were 
contracted, must understand that it is impossible 
any longer to exclude such a numerous class as 
their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects from equal 
rights (so far as is consistent with positive former 
engagements) and equal justice under every cir- 
cumstance. The wealth, peace, property, and 
happiness of Ireland depends on the different 
sections of her population shewing moderation 
and mutual forbearance. 



SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 



The Early History of Ireland 1 — 6 

Irish Dissensions 7 

Difficulties of Irish Legislation 8, 9 

Difficulty in satisfying the Roman Catholic Clergy 10, 11 

Education Question 12 — 15 

Scotland and Ireland 16 

Religious Societies in Ireland 17 

Protestants of the North of Ireland 18 

Religious Differences in England 19 

English Dissenters 20, 21 

Identity of Irish Protestants 22 

O'Neal's Rebellion, &c 23, 25, 26 

Act of Settlement 24 

Connexion of Ireland with England 27 

Protestantism essential in Ireland 28 

First establishment of Protestantism in Ireland . . . . 29 

Popery favoured by James II 30 

Roman Catholic Rebellion of 1 798 31 

Consequences of sequestrating Ecclesiastical pro- 
perty in Ireland 32, 33 

Inviolability of Church Endowments 34, 35 

The Church an instrument for Evangelising the 

world 36, 37 

Romanist suppression of the Bible 38 

The Protestant Clergy the true Friends of the Poor. . 39 

b 



XIV SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 

Foundation of Church Property 40 

Inalienability of Church Endowments 41 

Romanism not the true Catholic Faith 42 

Injustice of appropriating Church Property 43 

Dissolution of Ecclesiastical Benefices an approach 

to the Voluntary system 44^ 45 

The Property of the Church consists of ancient 

voluntary contributions . . , 45 

Episcopacy and Presbyterianism .... . , 47 

Churches of England and Scotland 48, 49 

First Irish Church Bill 50 

The Reformation 51, 52, 55, 56 

Henry VIII. a Roman Catholic 53 

Grants of Abbey Lands 54 

Translation of the Bible 57 

The Six Articles 58 

The Reign of Edward VI 59 

The Reign of Queen Elizabeth 60 

Reform of the Church of England 61 

The Queen's Supremacy 61s 

The Convocation 63 

Self-Reformation of the Church 64 

Irish Reformation . , ($5 

The Irish Church . . , qq 

Ancient Controversy respecting the time of 

celebrating Easter 67 75 

On St. Patrick's Mission to Ireland 75 — 80 

Pelagian Heresy. . . 9 .80 

Assumptions of the Roman See. , 81 

The Geek Church 82 

On Mass and Sacrifice 83 

John Eregina — Sedulius . . 84, 85 



SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. XV 

St. Bridget— Claudius 86, 87 

Communion in both kinds , 88 

On the ancient British Church 89 

St. Jerome— The Albigenses 90, 91 

Primacy of the See of Armagh . ... 92, 93 

Doctor O'Connor — Malachy O'Morgan 94, 95 

Desmond, King of Leinster 96 

Synod of Waterford 97 

Warden of Galway. .... 98 

The Irish Clergy nominated by the Chiefs 99 

Statute of Kilkenny 100—102 

Suspension of hostility between the English 

and Irish first caused by the Reformation . . 102 — 103 
The Chieftains acknowledged the King's Supre- 
macy . . 104, ] 05 

Service performed in English 106 

The Prelates conformed 107 

Reign of King Edward VI 108 

Pope Paul IV 109 

Anglo-Irish Nobles — Desmond and O'Neil. ... 110, 111 

The Irish Nobles and Peasantry 112, 113 

The Irish Chieftains— O'Neil' s Rebellion .... 114, 115 

The Pope's Bull, temp. Elizabeth 116 

The Thirty-nine Articles 117 

Archbishop Dowdal — Irish Tithes 118, 119 

Relaxation of severity towards the Irish 120 

Spirit of the Reformation 121 

Rebellion of 1641 122 

Milesian Irish 123 

Brehon Laws 1 24 

Law of Gavelkind 125 

Origin of Irish Factions 126 



XVI SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 

Injustice to Ireland 127 

Beneficial Statutes 128 

Rebellion 129 

Time of Henry VIII 130 

Milesian Customs 131 

Prospects of Ireland , 132, 133 

Gentry and Peasantry 1 34 

What is Protestant Ascendancy 135 

Irish Tithes 136 

Repeal of the Union 137 

Difficulties in governing Ireland 138, 139 

Objections to paying the Roman Catholic 

Priests 140, 141 

The Friars 142 

Repeal of the Union 143, 145 

Roman Catholic Association 144 

An Irish House of Commons 146 

Identity of the Constitution 147 

Bill of Rights 148 

Natural Inequality 149 

Second French Revolution 150 

Right of Succession 151 

American Democracy 152 

Professions of the Roman Catholics 153 

Obligations of the Legislature 154 



IRELAND, 

AND THE IRISH CHURCH. 



It is usual to hear Ireland spoken of with a shew 
of deep concern. u That unhappy country," is a 
phrase common to her real as well as her pre- 
tended friends; but when it is used few contem- 
plate, and fewer still are aware, that she has had 
a claim to their compassion, from the earliest 
period of her existence. She was peopled by 
successive colonizations ; and apparently not by 
peaceful settlers in search of a residence, but by 
warlike tribes, who, having commenced a wandering 
life, from motives which cannot now be ascer- 
tained, at last placed themselves in Ireland, and 
generally made aggression on those tribes which 
had preceded them . 

The best authorities are of opinion that the first 
settlers were of Celtic origin. It is not necessary 
to consider the fabulous stories which are con- 
nected with the Bardic account of the first colo- 

B 



2 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 

nists ; except that ultimately to obtain something 
like dates, we may mention that they are said to 
have been headed by a chief of the name of 
Japhet; and the second attempt at colonization 
was made, about the time of the patriarch Jacob, 
by a race called Numidians, who attacked a 
tribe of pirates, called Formosians, who were 
settled upon an island on the coast of Ulster ; 
but the Numidians being defeated, the country 
was left to the mercy of the Formosians for 200 
years* 

The next colonists and conquerors were the Belgee, 
probably from Germany, who established the five 
monarchies of Ireland ; but these were conquered 
in the space of about thirty years by the Daneans, 
who came from the north of Europe ; and these 
were conquered by the Milesian or Scotic race, 
some say 1300 years, some 1000, and others about 
400 years before our Saviour, 

There were other colonists ; but as far as the 
maze of such early history can be disentangled, 
except with great labour, these were the principal 
settlers, b ut, no question, at a period very dif- 
ferent from the pretended dates. The Scotic 
colony had no sooner gained a complete victory 
over the Daneans, than a bitter controversy com- 
menced among the conquerors, and the two sons 
of Milesius disputed for the possession of a 



EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 3 

valley of singular beauty ; and in the subsequent 
contest^ the eldest, Heber, lost his life, and the 
survivor began a new contest with his remaining 
brother, in which he was also victorious. What 
was the state of Ireland from that time, till the five 
kingdoms were dissolved by Hugony the Great, 
does not appear ; but the abdication of authority, 
by the five minor sovereigns, was rescinded under 
Acty Fidloch, and the ancient five restored. 

The existence of these five monarchs, as may 
be supposed, led to perpetual wars. A spirit of 
revolt also broke out among the Belgic tribes, 
who were confined to the province of Connaught ; 
and Mr. Moore, who is here my chief authority, 
says : " Under the Scotic rule, not only were the 
great mass of the old Celtic population held in 
subjection by the sword, but also the descendants 
of the foreign settlers, the remains of the con- 
quered Belgic tribes, were wholly excluded from 
every share in the administration of public affairs, 
and treated in every respect as a servile and Helot 
class." 

To what period, therefore, are we to go back, in 
search of the wrongs of Ireland ? where did they 
originate ? and how is it possible, to charge any 
of her numerous conquerors with having been 
peculiarly guilty ? And if we are asked, from 
whence came wars and fightings among them, 
b 2 



4 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 

which abound from the time of Heber, the son of 
Milesius, to the monarch of one hundred battles, we 
can only answer, in the language of S crip ture," from 
their lusts f from the desire of power or the desire 
of gain. They had passions like other men ; but no 
great legislator seems to have arisen among them, 
and seldom even a great chieftain, who could 
keep order by the sword, OUamh Jodhla is 
said to have established useful institutions ; but 
the most important survived him but a short time. 
The triennial convention of Tara survived, but it 
is not clear that it was very efficacious. 

Inathal established a court of civil jurisdiction for 
the regulation of tradesmen and artificers. Jeodhiim 
was the first, a. d. 250, to abolish the law of retalia- 
tion ; and Mr. Moore tells us that Cormar Ulfadha 
was a the only one of the few sensible princes which 
the line of Milesius produced, who was able to 
inspire sufficient respect for his institutions, to se- 
cure their existence beyondhis own life- time/' We 
look in vain for an Alfred, who would at once 
enact good laws, and devise a system by which 
they might be enforced. — If, therefore, anarchy 
has frequently prevailed in Ireland, and if they 
are a people prone to dissension, we must not 
look for the cause in modern times. There have 
been bitter and bloody differences between Pro- 
testants and Roman Catholics; but dissension did 



EARLY IRISH HISTORY. O 

not commence at the time of the Reformation. 
There were wars between the English settlers and 
the aboriginal inhabitants ; but they were not 
the first who disputed for the soil of Ireland. 
— There were differences between the Romish 
missionaries and the earlier Christians, as to the 
time of celebrating Easter and other matters ; but 
this was the least bloody quarrel which Ireland 
had known. It may be, the chieftain who invited 
the interposition of the Romans, or the king who 
brought in the English, were not so deficient in 
patriotism as may at first sight appear. Any rule 
would seem better than anarchy ; and it may have 
appeared an act of patriotism to introduce order, 
even though it was to be enforced by a foreign 
power. 

If Ireland has been subject to violent internal 
contests, she has no less been the object of bitter 
dissension among those who were concerned in 
her government. For centuries, Ireland was held 
in little estimation ; and since she has come into 
notice, she has been made the subject, on which to 
exercise the crude theories of speculative philoso- 
phers, and been the instrument for promoting the 
separate objects of party politicians, or the self- 
interest of private individuals. That she should 
have been neglected for a time is not a matter of 
surprise. 



6 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 

Ireland produced little revenue ; did not afford 
much trade; was, as to intercourse, practically 
more distant than at present, and had little com- 
parative influence on the political prosperity of 
the sister country. But it is one extraordinary 
feature in her case, that a large proportion of those 
for whom an interest is now claimed, and has 
really been excited, and on whose behalf the 
wrongs and injuries of Ireland are often pleaded 
(I mean the Irish Roman Catholics), — a large pro- 
portion of these are actually the descendants, not 
of the oppressed, but of the oppressors. 

The Pale, as it was called, was an English colony. 
Much of Munster was also colonised by the Eng- 
lish ; and the population of those two districts, 
who are generally Roman Catholics, comprise a 
very large proportion of those on whose behalf 
these appeals are made, which set forth the oppres- 
sions of the ancestors of these very men ; but in 
point of fact, a careful examination would shew, 
that there is very little unmixed Irish blood, except 
in the province of Connaught. 

The wrongs of Ireland are spoken of, as if they 
proceeded all from the same hand, were inflicted 
on the same persons, and originated in the same 
source; whereas, at different times, all these 
circumstances were different. 

For some time after the conquest the contest 



IRISH DISSENSIONS. 7 

was, as usual in Ireland, between the conquerors 
and the conquered,— between the colonists and the 
aboriginal inhabitants, — which continued even after 
another element of discord was let in, that is, 
the difference of religion. The aboriginal in- 
habitants, indeed, made use of that powerful in- 
centive to strengthen their hands ; and at last, by- 
uniting the colonists of the Roman Catholic 
persuasion to the ancient Irish, a new charac- 
ter was given to the national differences ; and 
though there was still a dislike to British con- 
nexion on one side, and a feeling on the other, 
that safety was only to be found in the protection of 
the sister country, these differences were in- 
creased, and mutual dislike promoted, by the op- 
position in the religious opinions of the parties ; 
and the quarrel continued for a long time to be, 
and perhaps is still, partly religious and partly 
political. 

Possibly one reason, why all the remedies pro- 
posed for Ireland have failed, and why all the con- 
ciliation which has been used, has produced no 
calm in the passions of the people, is to be found 
in the difficulties which such a state of affairs pre- 
sents, under the present circumstances of the Irish 
population. It has been the great misfortune of 
Ireland, that her interests have been considered as 
if they were the affairs of one people, like the 



b DIFFICULTIES OF IRISH LEGISLATION. 

Scots or the English ; but they are not, nor were 
they ever at any time, one people. 

The province of Ulster resembles much more 
the lowlands of Scotland than any other part of 
Ireland ; and though not entirely Protestant, yet 
so large a proportion of her lowest population are 
Protestant, and her highest and middle ranks are 
so exclusively of that persuasion, that she may be 
considered as a Protestant country. How, then, is 
it possible to legislate for Ireland as a Roman 
Catholic country, even if you could put out of 
consideration the majority of the higher orders, 
and the scattered Protestant population in the 
other three Provinces ? Yet this is evidently the 
aim of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and of those 
who have any purpose apart from self-interest, 
among her agitators. And this is one reason, why 
you have never given satisfaction, by all the mea- 
sures which have been proposed, by way of con- 
ciliating Ireland. What you have done, has given 
no satisfaction to the Roman Catholics, being 
short of what they require ; and it has given dis- 
satisfaction to the Protestants, because almost 
every measure has had in view the most numerous, 
but the least intelligent and least wealthy, portion 
of the population. 

It is not meant that the views on either side have 
been unexceptionably reasonable; it is only in- 



DIFFICULTIES OF IRISH LEGISLATION. 9 

tended to state a fact, without at present justifying 
or blaming the parties. It is no wonder, there- 
fore that Ireland should present so many political 
anomalies, and such practical difficulties in the 
way of the statesmen who would heal her divi- 
sions, and benefit her condition. 

What is demanded on the part of the numerical 
majority, is denied on the part of those who 
possess the weight of property r What is asked for 
three provinces, is rejected by a fourth, and by an 
intelligent and wealthy minority in the other three. 
Take, for instance, the payment of the Roman 
Catholic priesthood. You raise conscientious ob- 
jections, on the part of the religious portion of the 
Protestant population ; and, while you satisfy the 
claim made on the part of a majority, in only a 
part of Ireland, you do violence to property, which 
has long been vested in the Protestant establish- 
ment, and infringe a positive engagement, entered 
into by the Act of Union, which should be inviola- 
ble, as having the force of a treaty, between two par- 
ties which have ceased to exist. And further : in 
seeking to relieve those who only nominally con- 
tribute to a clergy whom they do not acknowledge, 
you in most cases force the landlords — from whose 
estates the property of the Church is always really, 
and is now literally, deducted — to transfer those 
payments, from a Church which they do ac- 

B 5 



10 DIFFICULTY IN SATISFYING 

knowledge, to one which many of them have pro- 
nounced^ and some believe to be, heretical ; and 
thus, in avoiding an imaginary injustice, you per- 
petuate a real one. But, on the other hand, 
you have — and must, I fear, continue to have— a 
body of men in the most influential situations, with 
whom the government have no influence, but who 
will always be hostile, so long as there is even a 
chance that, in the various changes which agita- 
tion may produce, or the experiments which de- 
spair may suggest, a change in the hierarchy may 
at last be tried. But would their success bring 
peace ? Are the clergy of France attached to the 
Orleans dynasty, or that of Portugal or Spain to 
the Constitutional government? Could a con- 
scientious Roman Catholic priesthood be attached 
to a Protestant and Constitutional government ? 
They may be liberal, so long as their interests are 
those of Dissenters generally ; they may make 
common cause with those with whom they differ 
as widely as the poles. But give them authority ; 
let the common object be once accomplished ; and 
then they can never concur with those who would 
give education; and they can never love institu- 
tions which would leave their population open to 
instruction andproselytism. And remaining, as the 
Roman Catholic clergy must ever remain, an in- 
sulated order, cut off from the social enjoyments 



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY. 11 

of life, owning a foreign head, and, as it were, 
under a separate government, they would still 
prove an untractable, if not a hostile body ; with an 
acknowledged, instead of an usurped authority, 
and with rights which they would not be slow to 
assert, and, if possible, to extend ; while the dif- 
ference between them and the Protestants would 
become more bitter, as none of the circumstances 
which occasion them would be removed, and the 
parties would feel themselves more on an equality. 
The minds of the Protestants would be exasperated; 
they would think that the conditions had been 
violated under which their ancestors had become 
colonists in Ireland. The friends of good order and 
government would be alienated, while its enemies 
would not be conciliated. 

In saying this, however, there is no intention to 
cast blame in any quarter ; the difficulties which 
surround the Irish question are too great, and the 
failure has been too uniform, to make it a matter of 
peculiar blame to any administration, that they 
have not succeeded. Neither is there any intention 
of charging all the Roman Catholics with being 
the enemies of good order. Some have shewn 
themselves so, and evince a spirit of discontent ; 
but there are others who know and appreciate the 
value of a well ordered State, even under a Protes- 
tant government. Another difficulty, however, 



12 EDUCATION QUESTION. 

presents itself, in considering the state of Ireland 
in this point of view. 

Most of those who have taken an interest in 
the prospects of that country, have entertained 
sanguine hopes of the good effects which may 
result from the diffusion of education. Some have 
believed, that benefit may be derived from mere 
intellectual improvement, and from the acquisition 
of the power of reading. Others have thought, that 
if the object is to improve the moral condition of 
the people, and to give juster notions of moral 
good and evil, your system of education must be 
essentially religious, and its object must be to give 
religious knowledge, and at the same time to cul- 
tivate the religious affections. And, I confess, if 
that part of the Creed of all orthodox Christians 
(not excepting the Roman Catholics) is correct, 
which represents the human character as naturally 
depraved, and man as by nature very far gone 
from original righteousness ; — and if, as is asserted 
by all orthodox Protestants, whether by Church- 
men or Dissenters, (and I believe by Roman 
Catholics) that man cannot turn and do works 
pleasing to God except by the grace of God pre- 
venting him;— if this doctrine is true, I cannot see 
that a mere knowledge of reading and writing will 
cure the original corruption ; or that any intellectual 
cultivation, which does not teach from whence the 



EDUCATION QUESTION. 13 

remedy is to come, can cure the moral inability 
under which man naturally labours. And if 
knowledge is power, it is impossible to believe 
that power will prove useful, and be well directed, 
in the hands of those who are still inclined to 
evil, and who must be unable to apply a remedy* 
while unacquainted with the only source from 
which they can derive a cure. But, even if mere 
intellectual cultivation were a remedy, is it certain 
that the Roman Catholic priesthood are willing to 
place this power, to an unlimited extent, in the 
hands of their people ? I know that they have 
favoured, in a degree, the new system of educa- 
tion ; but I know also, that it has been asserted, 
(with what correctness I am unable from my own 
knowledge to state, but it is asserted) by credible 
persons, that they have favoured the new system, 
because, in many instances, it has afforded support 
to their own schools, where they have been able 
to adhere to the letter of the regulations, that no 
peculiarities of religion should be taught, while 
they have successfully evaded its spirit, by teaching 
the appropriate doctrines of the Romish creed, as 
exclusively as they did, previous to their obtaining 
assistance from the public funds. But be this as 
it may, the real question is this, Will the Roman 
Catholics support a system of education, which 



14 EDUCATION QUESTION. 

does not either directly or indirectly maintain 
their religion ? 

I know there is a difference of opinion on this 
point ; but again, can any system of education, 
which will leave the Roman Catholic religion and 
the Roman Catholic population as they are at 
present, with respect to religious information, be 
conducive to the well-being of Ireland ? 

Another question presents itself. Suppose that the 
Roman Catholic clergy will support a system, which 
has only in view the intellectual improvement of 
the people. But can such really be beneficial? 
It will, I have no doubt, shake the Roman Catholic 
religion to the very foundation; and, in conse- 
quence, truth will be rejected on account of its 
fellowship, in that instance, with falsehood. But 
can the country be benefited by the exchange of 
superstition for infidelity? Who will recom- 
mend that the people should reject those truths 
by which, (notwithstanding all the dangerous errors 
with which they are accompanied) they may lay 
hold of that salvation which has been provided for 
them, and take in exchange, not merely a cold and 
barren system, but plunge into that abyss of dark- 
ness, which we know is the prelude to everlasting 
darkness. 

For once I agree with all true Roman Catho- 



EDUCATION QUESTION. 15 

lies, and prefer their remaining for ever in their 
present dangerous state of error, than barter it for 
certain destruction. We come then to this point* 
If the Roman Catholic clergy do not favour educa- 
tion in any way, — or if they only favour it in such 
a way as will still leave the people under the in- 
fluence of the superstitious and erroneous prin- 
ciples of their religion, which will not promote 
essential improvement ; — if they only consent 
to a system of intellectual cultivation, which 
merely promotes men^s temporal interests, and 
which, if not rightly directed, will prove infinitely 
prejudicial to their best interests, by leaving them 
open to the attacks of infidelity ; — in any of these 
cases the concessions of the Roman Catholic clergy 
will come short of the views both of Churchmen 
and Dissenters, who desire to give sound religious 
education, which shall have truth only for its object, 
as it is set forth in the Scriptures. When we con- 
sider how many individuals feel themselves under 
a conscientious obligation to promote this object, 
and how many societies there are, which were 
established for this interesting purpose, many of 
which originate among that powerful and influen- 
tial body, the English Dissenters ; is it not obvious 
that there ever must be continual discord between 
those institutions and the Roman Catholic clergy; 
and that, if the Roman Catholic clergy are recog- 



16 SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 

nised, and in any degree established, they will be 
able to resist the benevolent efforts of these per- 
sons with much more effect than they do at 
present. Many will think, this is a consequence 
not to be deprecated, and having in view that the 
Roman Catholic religion should be the established 
religion of Ireland, or of a part of it, as the Pres- 
byterian religion is that of Scotland, they do not 
object to extend its influence. 

But independent of the religious part of this 
question, the political circumstances of the two 
countries are different. The property of Scotland 
was not almost exclusively Episcopal, and she 
had not a large portion of her population of that 
persuasion, as is the case in Ireland, and es- 
pecially in the north, and in the large towns. 
Besides, there was no very great portion of the 
population of the empire at large who thought the 
Presbyterian religion essentially erroneous in its 
doctrine, and highly prejudicial to the souls of 
men. This discord between the Roman Catholic 
clergy, and the different religious bodies, who 
have it in view to promote religious education in 
Ireland, is sometimes embarrassing to the govern- 
ment ; and it will be ten times more so, if the 
Roman Catholic religion is partially established. 
The different religious societies will then intrude 
on the duties of men w T ho are recognised, and 



RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES IN IRELAND. 1/ 

some whose offices have a legal existence. It will 
not be an intrusion (as at present, when it occurs 
with many of the established clergy) on men who, 
to a certain degree, admit the right of private 
judgment, and appeal to a common standard of 
truth ; but it will be an invasion of the rights of 
men, who believe they are themselves the only 
dispensers of religious truths, — and the very act of 
interference will be a violation of their religious 
principles, — and who will therefore consider even 
the toleration of attempts to instruct their flocks 
as a breach of the engagements by which they 
were established ; while the parties who have been 
for years successfully engaged in diffusing religious 
instruction in Ireland, will consider every obstruc- 
tion they may meet with as an interference with the 
spirit of toleration, by which they feel themselves 
at liberty both to preach and teach what they hold 
to be essential for their fellow-creatures to know 
and to believe : and however the English Dissen- 
ters may at present (while attracted by other ob- 
jects) quietly contemplate such a concession to the 
Roman Catholics, they will hereafter most obsti- 
nately resist its effects. 

I have avoided the religious question, how far 
the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion 
will be prejudicial to the souls of men; for I 



18 PROTESTANTS OF NORTH OF IRELAND. 

address myself chiefly to those who would not 
easily be convinced on this point ; but if a large 
and influential portion of the community have an 
objection to such a measure, on such grounds, it 
appears politically inexpedient to offend their 
principles, — or, if you will, even their prejudices, 
and certainly their conscientious objections. 

The chance of conciliating the Roman Catholic 
clergy is uncertain, — scarcely possible, unless they 
were maintained against any interference with 
their people, which every day threatens more and 
more their existence; and the certainty would be 
incurred, of alienating the orthodox Dissenters, with 
the great majority of the Church of England. And 
how could the Protestants of the North of Ireland, 
or even the minority of the South, contemplate 
such a measure; and how can they be reconciled 
to the necessary diminution of their ecclesiastical 
establishment? Would the Presbyterians of the 
North be satisfied, who have almost invariably 
made common cause with the Established Church, 
being themselves partially established, though not 
out of the property of the Church. They will 
naturally object to the elevation of their opponents 
to a condition perhaps superior to their own. 

This brings us to consider the peculiar circum- 
stances under which these people are placed, and 
which compels a review of the historical events 



RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES IN ENGLAND. 19 

out of which their present condition originates. 
But we must first view, what is the present state 
of Ireland, compared with England. 

There is a contest going on in England at 
present, which originates with a certain class of 
politicians, with whose sentiments a portion of 
the middle classes co-operate, whose object it is to 
allow the aristocracy, higher gentry, and great 
capitalists, to have little more influence in the 
direction of the affairs of the nation (in whose 
welfare they have so deep a stake) than what 
they may derive from their individual votes. 
There is also a contest on the part of a majo- 
rity of the . Dissenters, who desire to overthrow 
the Establish Church, and to leave the kingdom 
without any national recognition of genuine Chris- 
tianity. But there is another contest going on in 
Ireland, for very different purposes, in which the 
malcontents in England co-operate with those 
who desire a change, without being aware, I am 
persuaded, what a difference there is in the senti- 
ments and objects of the chief actors. 

In Ireland there is comparatively no middle 
class ; for there the population of the towns bears 
a small proportion to those of the rural districts ; 
and in the latter, the population is almost entirely 
gentry and peasantry : and between these bodies 
there can be no contest for political importance. 



20 ENGLISH DISSENTERS. 

The peasantry blindly follow either their landlord, 
the priest, or the political agitator, for some un- 
defined good, and of which, so far as civil politics 
are concerned, they know nothing, except that 
there is to be a change, and that change they hope 
will be beneficial. But the desire to establish the 
Roman Catholic church, and the overthrow of the 
Protestant hierarchy, is the great object of the 
priesthood, — is sought with more sincerity than 
any thing else by the political agitator, — and does 
present some prospect of pecuniary benefit even to 
the peasant. But how does this harmonize with 
the voluntary system of the English Dissenters ? 
how does it consort with the abhorrence which 
the orthodox Dissenter professes for superstition 
and Popery ? Does he believe that the trust 
reposed in many mediators is derogatory to the 
one great Mediator ? Does he believe that the 
power of granting absolution is injurious to morals, 
and leads men away from the true source of 
pardon ? Does he believe that the trust reposed 
in relics tends to, and the sacrifice of the Mass is 
practically, idolatry ? Does he believe that the 
doctrine of penance, of pilgrimages to holy places, 
and a belief in the efficiency of the works of 
supererogation by departed Saints, leads to a false 
and dangerous dependance ? Does he believe that 
a reliance on our good works, as a meritorious 



ENGLISH DISSENTERS. 21 

cause of salvation. — is incompatible with justifica- 
tion by faith ? And, lastly, does the orthodoxDissen- 
ter think that all these dogmas (with such a prolific 
source of error and never-failing engine of autho- 
rity,) as that undefined tradition, is of co-equal 
authority with Holy Scripture ? I say, does he 
consider all these dogmas injurious to the souls of 
men, and will he co-operate to establish these in 
Ireland ? to rivet them there to the danger of the 
souls of the poor ignorant Irish peasants ? And 
for what ? that he may rid himself of the mortifi- 
cation of seeing the superiority of a church to 
which, possibly, he only objects its Episcopal 
government, the use of the cross in Baptism, and 
the ring in Marriage ; with a few (as he thinks) 
objectionable words in its services. This seems 
even more strange than that the cold-hearted 
Socinian should consent to assist in imposing upon 
Ireland a religion, which not only violates reason, 
but prostrates the understanding at the shrine of 
superstition, and is a religion, too, which, in main- 
taining the independent authority of tradition, asks 
for faith, without shewing its credentials. But if 
the English Dissenters are willing to impose this 
yoke on the Irish, in order to obtain what will be 
a very questionable advantage even to the Soci- 
nian, and will remove from the orthodox Dissenter 
the only secular support which sound religion 



22 IDENTITY OF IRISH PROTESTANTS. 

now receives, still the Irish Dissenters, and, above 
all, the Irish Presbyterians of the Scottish Esta- 
blishment, are by no means willing to make this 
sacrifice. They repudiate all association for such 
purpose with Roman Catholics, and they are quite 
aware of the value of the support and countenance 
of the Established Church, to which they frequently 
conform ; and therefore, in estimating the religious 
wants of the Established Church, it is not reason- 
able to estimate them at the numbers which 
remain, after subtracting the Roman Catholics 
and Presbyterians. 

But all denominations of Protestants should be 
taken together, because all such receive benefit 
from the clergy of the Irish Church, and all such 
desire it should be maintained. I propose there- 
fore now, to consider the claims which these 
persons have conjointly on the good faith of the 
government, arising from the circumstances under 
which their ancestors were placed in Ireland, — the 
engagements, implied or expressed, which were 
entered into, and the services which we have 
rendered to British connexion ; and in so doing I 
hope to avoid saying one word which will be 
offensive to a Roman Catholic, or to urge any 
thing inconsistent with the most kind and con- 
ciliating policy towards that portion of Her 
Majesty's subjects in everything which does not 



o'XEAL's REBELLION^ &C. 23 

involve danger to the religious Establishment, and 
the religious opinions of the great majority of the 
empire. 

In speaking of religious opinions, the old 
and the plainest terms — such as superstition, 
and especially idolatry — may sound harsh ; but it 
is impossible to express the sentiments of Protes- 
tants, consistent with their formal declarations, to 
which the writer of this, with many others, has 
often subscribed, without appearing to want 
charity. I beg leave to say, however, if I give 
offence, it is not from an unkind feeling ; and even 
the apprehension of doing so is a matter of regret. 
I write from recollection ; but so far as my memory 
serves, the rebellion of O'Neal, earl of Tyrone, 
in the reign of queen Elizabeth, was the first 
insurrection in Ireland which seemed to originate 
inreligious differences. The result was the 
confiscation of O'NeaPs property, with that of 
others concerned in the rebellion ; and the six es- 
cheated counties were subsequently colonised with 
Protestants, by James I. ; to defray the expence 
of which, it is w T ell known, the order of Baronets 
was created, who, to this day, have the arms of 
Ulster added to their armorial bearings. 

Now there can be no question that these 
colonists settled in Ireland with a perfect under- 
standing that the Protestant religion was to be 
maintained there ; to increase the influence of 



24 ACT OF SETTLEMENT. 

which was the prime object of the plantation of 
Ulster. 

Again, after the bloody rebellion of Sir Phelim 
O'Neal, in 1641, Cromwell encouraged the Pro- 
testant settlers in various parts ; and certainly 
they had no reason to fear that his policy would 
not maintain the Protestant religion, which, toge- 
ther with their possessions, was secured in the 
amplest manner by the Act of Settlement, 14 and 
15. C. II., which seems almost expressly drawn for 
the purpose of connecting the establishment cf 
the Protestant religion and the security of property ; 
this Act being, as it were, the charter from which 
the title of both is derived, as it pledged the 
legislature and the states to maintain invio- 
lable the grants made to individuals of the 
forfeited estates ; and, in consequence, the 
estates of the English or Protestants, which before 
the Rebellion were only equal to those of 
the Irish, became after this settlement more than 
double those of the Roman Catholics ; the Protes- 
tants, according to Sir William Petty, possessing 
5,140,000 acres, and the Irish only 2,280,000. And 
the same acts stipulated that two acres out of 
every hundred forfeited should be set apart for 
glebes for the Protestant clergy, and provided for 
certain augmentations to some of the poorer 
bishoprics, clearly evincing that the object of 



O^NEAI/S REBELLION. 25 

these acts was not only the security of the newly 
granted property, but the endowment of the 
Protestant religion for the use of the settlers; 
and this policy seemed to influence all the subse- 
quent governments, except that of James II., up 
to a very recent period ; — the two principles on 
which the Acts of Settlement w r ere grounded, being 
ever considered as inseparably united ; and in 
fact it seems difficult to separate them ; for how 
can the rebellions of the two ONeals be con- 
demned, and the consequent forfeitures be justified 
and maintained, if the object they had in view 
(that is, as to the establishment of the Roman 
Catholic religion,) was not only reasonable, but a 
matter which they might claim as a right ; and if 
you are to redress the wrong in which the rebel- 
lion originated, how can you refuse remission of 
the penalty arising from the offence which your 
injustice provoked ? 

I do not now argue whether it was reasonable or 
prudent to admit the Roman Catholics into Parlia- 
ment ; for that concession has been made, and must 
not be withdrawn ; but when that matter was 
debated, it was asserted by many that it would not 
pacify, but merely lead to a demand for a partial 
establishment of the Roman Catholic Church ; 
a supposition which was esteemed by the friends 
of the measure, when under debate, as extrava- 

c 



26 

gant, and not deserving of any consideration. 
That demand has, however, been made and sup- 
ported by such authority as very nearly to enforce 
its concession ; we have, therefore, the evidence of 
experience for believing that the movement will 
not stop when the present object is achieved. It 
may not be easy to foresee what will be the next 
step, as the greater the progress the more for- 
midable the difficulties which will present them- 
selves. But as in modern times these rebellions 
have not only been looked upon with less ab- 
horrence than when the cruelties by which they 
were characterised were more recent, and as 
something like a justification is even sometimes 
attempted, on the ground that the parties were 
aboriginal inhabitants, in whom the sovereignty 
was formerly invested, it may be well to examine 
this part of the subject. 

In the first place, the mere Irish, as they 
were then called, were, for the most part, those 
who had originally taken possession by force, and 
had maintained themselves by violence, till they 
were dispossessed by the English, who possibly 
had a greater shew of right, on occasion of their 
first intrusion, than most of their predecessors. 
But, moreover, though a certain degree of sove- 
reignty had vested in some of their chiefs, 
especially the O'Neals, it was confessedly a 



CONNEXION OF IRELAND WITH ENGLAND. 27 

subordinate sovereignty, and it had been bartered 
for rank and authority, under the English mo- 
narch, to whom the most powerful had long 
acknowledged allegiance. 

We are more inclined to contemplate the case 
of the Irish rebels with compassion, when we 
consider that they were contending for their 
religion, and under obligations which they con- 
sidered sacred ; but this religion itself had sap- 
planted a more primitive form of Christianity ; 
and if the Irish Roman Catholics acted under a 
sincere though mistaken sense of religious obli- 
gation, it cannot be questioned that the views of 
persons of their persuasion, at that time, were 
inconsistent with the maintenance of either civil 
or religious freedom, 

Ireland was not an independent power, nor was 
her connexion with England then merely federal. 
The right of England was either grounded on the 
surrender of the rights of one of the monarchs of 
Ireland to the British Crown, or it was that of 
conquest. Ireland was essentially a dependance 
of the British monarchy ; a dependance, indeed, 
which quickly grew of such importance, that she 
accomplished a federal connexion ; which was at 
last such a state of independance as to oblige the 
British government to desire a complete incor- 
poration. But it requires no great sagacity to 
c 2 



28 PROTESTANTISM ESSENTIAL IN IRELAND. 

discover that Ireland, if it becomes for the most 
part a Roman Catholic country, will be on no 
very amiable terms with Great Britain as a 
Protestant country. This hostility may begin 
to shew itself by perpetual agitation, having for 
its object a repeal of the Union; or it may take 
some other direction, 

But the hostility of Roman Catholics to inter- 
ference, and the zeal of Protestants to give reli- 
gious information, will ever be a source of 
discord ; while the zeal of a portion of the people 
for their religion, while uninformed, will for ever 
be stimulated by a recollection of the large 
domains which their ancestors forfeited; and 
of which they will then have reason to think they 
were unjustly deprived. And these sources of 
discord will be increased rather than lessened, if, 
as there is reason to fear, an ascendancy is gained 
by the Protestant Dissenters in England, on 
whose temporary alliance with the Roman 
Catholics no dependance can be placed. There 
can be no doubt, therefore, that it was essential 
to England that Ireland should adopt the religion 
of the sister country ; for if the Roman Catholic 
religion had been established in Ireland, it is 
obvious that it would have been perpetually an 
instrument in the hands of the Pope, and of the 
Roman Catholic powers of Europe ; most of 



FIRST ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM. 29 

whom were hostile to our first Protestant monarchs; 
as it is clear that queen Elizabeth would not have 
established the Roman Catholic religion in her 
dominions while she was under excommunication, 
and her Roman Catholic subjects were bound to 
disobey and resist her. It is equally obvious that 
even her firmness, and the vigour with which she 
and her ministers exercised the executive authority, 
would not have been sufficient to induce her Eng- 
lish subjects to tolerate such a proceeding, 
especially as the lives of her Irish Protestant sub- 
jects would have been the sacrifice. The govern- 
ment of those days were, therefore, under an 
uncontrollable necessity of establishing the Pro- 
testant religion. The consequence was, that 
under the instigation of the Pope, and some 
Roman Catholic princes, the Roman Catholics 
hazarded their fortunes in two rebellions, in both 
of which they failed, The condition of the 
the Protestants was improved by having their 
numbers increased, and the property transferred 
from Roman Catholic to Protestant proprietors ; 
and a large provision was made for their Church 
out of the forfeitures. Now it is asked that 
these advantages should be abandoned ; that the 
Crown, the Church, and the freedom of England 
having been materially secured by the danger 
to which Protestants in Ireland were exposed, 



30 POPERY FAVOURED BY JAMES II. 

the debt of gratitude should be cancelled ; that 
the inducements held out to the settlers who 
were placed in Ireland to secure the new order of 
things, should be withdrawn ; that the Roman 
Catholics should now obtain that for which their 
ancestors had rebelled in vain ; and this to the 
prejudice of those who maintained the existing 
Constitution. 

But it may be said, it is too far to go back two 
hundred years for such arguments» Look then to the 
course of history ever since. It is contested whether 
the Revolution was occasioned by the attempt of 
James II. to establish the Roman Catholic reli- 
gion, or whether his object was solely arbitrary 
power ; but absolute power was chiefly valuable 
to him, as a means of establishing Popery, to 
which he was attached with such sincerity as to 
shew he had some religion ; and I believe it was 
the exercise of arbitrary acts in favour of Popery 
which alone proved sufficient to rouse the nation. 
But I am content, on the present occasion, to 
adopt the views of those who support the Roman 
Catholics, and to allow that the revolution was 
brought about to avoid an arbitrary government. 
Is there not then some debt of gratitude due to 
the Protestants of Ireland, who contributed so 
materially, and at such risk, to defeat such a 
design ? 



ROMAN CATHOLIC REBELLION OF 1798. 31 

I allow that after the defeat of James II. there 
was a re-action, which shewed itself in too much 
severity towards the Roman Catholics. Protes- 
tant ascendancy was for a century afterwards the 
characteristic of the law of the land, and the 
unquestioned principle on which all parties there 
professed to act; and no doubt it was often 
carried to an unreasonable extreme, and exercised 
with too much rigour. But it must be remem- 
bered, that the Roman Catholic rebellion of 1798 
very quickly followed the first relaxation of the 
penal code ; and then the Protestants of Ireland 
were the supporters of the Throne and Constitution 
of this country; as they were, with the exception of 
a few Dissenters near Belfast, and some soi-disant 
Protestants in other great towns, invariably loyal 
while the Roman Catholics placed themselves in 
an unnatural alliance with Jacobinism and in- 
fidelity, which had so lately abolished the Roman 
Catholic religion in France, and for a time had 
even suspended the acknowledgment of a belief 
in a Supreme Being ; a sufficient proof how much 
they would wish to overturn Protestantism.* 



* The writer remembers the whole garrison of one of the great 
towns marching out to meet the rebels, leaving the loyal inhabi- 
tants in the greatest apprehension for two days, when 2000 
yeomanry marched in with Orange symbols and Orange flags ; to 
which no objection was made at that time, notwithstanding that 



32 CONSEQUENCES OF SEQUESTRATING 

The question, how far Church property may be 
disposed of by the State, has been too well argued 
to make it proper that it should be considered 
here. There can be little doubt, however, that if 
it should ever come to be decided, that it is at the 
disposal of the Legislature, it will occasion a 
general scramble in both countries, and be a 
source of perpetual discord. Whatever may be 
the abstract right, there will be no quiet, if the 
disposal of Ecclesiastical property is to be in 
proportion ; nor can it be beneficial to the mainte- 



they paraded daily to the tunes of " The Protestant Boys'' and 
" Croppies-Lie-Down/' and even the " Boyne Water." About 
the same time, on a Thanksgiving Day, several thousand as- 
sembled at the Cathedral of the same place, so that the church 
could not hold them. Nobody can have more objection than the 
writer of this paper to the use of party distinctions, which are 
offensive to others ; but at the same time some allowance must 
be made for the Irish Protestant peasants, who cannot under- 
stand how to use the same Orange sash, and to march to the 
same Orange tunes, is penal at present, which was loyal in 1798. 
His principles are unchanged, though the exigency of the late 
Government was different. Plain principles and duties are 
within his comprehension ; but it is too much to expect him either 
to understand a change of policy, or to sacrifice to what he 
does not understand, that which he was long taught to consider as 
a duty. It seems as if it would be better to disregard these 
manifestations till the people begin to be tired of them ; or, like 
the carrying about Guy Fawkes in England, they forget in what 
the custom originated. Few English boys who burn Guy 
Fawkes know who he was, and not one Roman Catholic is 
offended by witnessing those processions. 



ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY IN IRELAND. 33 

nance of revealed religion, unless one profession of 
Faith is supported as the Established Church, and 
all Ecclesiastical property appropriated to its use. 
If the doctrine of proportion is once allowed, 
why should not the Socinian, the Jew, and even 
the Deist, have his share? If the principle is 
good in Ireland, why is it to be excluded in 
England r If the Roman Catholic is admitted to 
the advantages it gives, why should the Indepen- 
dent be excluded ? What then is to shut out the 
Quaker ? After which the Socinian will put in his 
claim ; and we shall have high mass supported in 
Galway ; and the revenues of St. Clements, Strand, 
or St. Catherine's, may support the Socinian 
minister in Essex Street. 

These may appear extravagant consequences ; 
but speaking soberly, and I hope deliberately, if 
the principle is ever granted, I do not see how 
they can be avoided. It may be said, Indeed, your 
claims are extravagant ; but if it is answered, They 
cannot be resisted on your principles, will it do in 
these times to attempt to stop the application of 
a principle merely at the will of the Government? 

It is quite a mistake, to suppose that America 

affords an instance of the successful application 

of the principle which it is now endeavoured to 

introduce into these countries; and, moreover, the 

c 5 



34 INVIOLABILITY OF CHURCH ENDOWMENTS. 

circumstances of the two countries are so essen- 
tially different, as to make it very difficult to come 
to any satisfactory conclusion in reasoning from 
one to the other. For instance, it may be almost 
impossible to establish an endowment in a country 
where none previously existed; for the cupidity of 
modern times will not supply that which was 
provided by the piety of ancient days; and this 
is so much the case, that many of our cotempo- 
raries cannot distinguish in their own minds, 
between the emoluments arising from endowment, 
and those from taxation; and as there is no 
Church property in America, in those States where 
the Legislature has made a provision for religion, 
it is effected by a sort of personal tax, which each 
person pays to the minister of that religion which 
he prefers, But such a provision, if it was not 
abundantly objectionable, so far as the interests of 
religion alone are concerned, would be wholly 
inapplicable to a country like Ireland, where ex- 
isting Church property is to be divided. The 
tithe in fact has always been a deduction from the 
property of the landlord, which the law has now 
made exclusively liable ; but the landlords in the 
south of Ireland are generally Protestants, while 
their tenantry are for the most part Roman Ca- 
tholics ; the question will therefore arise, whether 



INVIOLABILITY OF CHURCH ENDOWMENTS. 35 

the tithe is to be paid to the minister who is pre- 
ferred by the landlord who pays the tithe, or to 
those who officiate to his tenantry, who are the 
majority of the population. 

If we are guided by the precedent of America, 
the Protestant clergyman has the best claim. But 
by the appropriation clause of the first Irish 
Church Bill, the claims of the tithe-owner were 
completely excluded ; and with that daring which 
leads a man boldly to the most preposterous enter- 
prises, its authors did not stop to solve a question 
of great importance, and which it is very difficult 
to determine, How far the Legislature are at liberty 
to deal with endowments appropriated to particu- 
lar purposes. It is not sufficient, in this case, to 
shew that Parliament have before legislated with 
regard to them ; for a precedent for the violation 
of the original intention of the grantors is no 
justification, as it only shews that one, perhaps 
slight, violation of a right is made a ground 
for justifying a more flagrant wrong. Neither is it 
safe to rest these proceedings upon the ground of 
expediency. It is expedient that the man in 
want should possess himself of the abundance 
which he supposes his neighbour misapplies ; but 
the more equal distribution of property in this 
way would become very inconvenient to society 



36 THE CHURCH AN INSTRUMENT 

at large. The degree of expediency may be so 
great, and so urgent, as to amount to necessity ; 
this, however, has been called the tyrant's plea, 
and should be resorted to with the greatest reluc- 
tance ; but in assenting to this principle, we must 
grant the right of Parliament to deal with the 
most ancient endowments as they shall think 
proper. And if we allow this principle with 
respect to the most ancient, we must also admit 
it with respect to the more modern institution, 
unless we assert that prescription weakens rather 
than strengthens a right. 

We must also admit that the Church Establish- 
ment is not intended for the benefit of the people 
at large, whether they will receive its ministrations 
or not — in which case we give it a Sectarian 
instead of a Catholic character. We must further 
suppose it is not desirable that the whole popula- 
tion should become Protestant ; for the late Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland is reported to have deli- 
berately announced his opinion, at the passing of 
the Irish Tithe bill, that it should be reduced to 
his notion of the wants of the Irish Protestant 
population, in violation of the principle that the 
Church, from the time that it consisted of only 
twelve poor fishermen, has been an instrument for 
evangelizing the world; and that, whether men 
are engaged by pleasure, by a desire of profit or 



FOR EVANGELISING THE WORLD. 37 

of honour, by error, or in a state of heathenism, 
it is the business of the Church to bring them 
out of that state. The deeper they are involved 
in error, the less will be the wants of the popula- 
tion from the Church, according to Lord For- 
tescue^s notion; but the more stringent is the 
duty of the Church to reclaim them; and the 
more the Church requires to be strengthened, 
according to that principle which constitutes the 
command, " Go ye to all the world, and preach 
the Gospel to every creature." 

But further, in considering this measure, it is 
also an important question, whether in many 
places the people do not adhere to the Roman 
Catholic religion much less tenaciously than for- 
merly. This is a matter which it is very difficult 
to determine; it is so impracticable to acquire an 
accurate knowledge of the opinions of so large a 
body of people who are spread over so wide a 
surface ; and this perplexity is not much dimi- 
nished by the report formerly made by the Com- 
missioners appointed for that purpose ; not only 
because their accuracy is disputed, but because 
they could not inquire or ascertain the various 
degrees in which large numbers are said to have 
fallen off from the church of Rome, without 
absolutely renouncing her communion. But the 
embarrassment which the Priests themselves ad- 



38 ROMANIST SUPPRESSION OF THE BIBLE. 

mit that they begin to experience in collecting 
their dues, at least shews a decline in their influ- 
ence ; and the alarm they discover on account of 
the dissemination of the Bible, evinced by the 
pains they take to prevent its circulation, and the 
objections they raise to the whole of the Scrip- 
tures being read in schools, must create a suspi- 
cion that they find the dispersion of the Bible, 
and the instruction given in the Scriptural schools, 
has had more effect than they are willing to allow ; 
and this idea is much confirmed by a report, that 
there are many Roman Catholics in different 
places who read their Bibles, and attend the 
schools, even in defiance of the commands of 
their priests. If we conjecture right in this re- 
spect, an awful responsibility is incurred by giving 
a check to what the Roman Catholic priests 
contemplate with so much alarm ; for no real 
Protestant can regret that there should be any 
approach towards a diminution of the number of 
Roman Catholics ; and is it possible for any, even 
nominal Protestants, not to desire that the ano- 
maly, occasioned by the existence of such a body 
of Dissenters, should be diminished ? And would 
not this effect be seriously retarded, if not wholly 
obstructed, in case the authority of the Roman 
Catholic hierarchy is in any degree established ? 
while such a measure would not afford any relief 



THE CLERGY THE FRIENDS OF THE POOR. 39 

to the peasant; for the priests would use their 
acknowledged authority to exact as much, if not 
more, for their services than they did before. 
If some Roman Catholics, and there are many 
in all countries, are abandoning Popery with- 
out substituting any other religion, that num- 
ber w T ould be fearfully increased, if you lessen the 
number of Protestant clergy now zealously labour- 
ing among them. But there are some merely 
statistical disadvantages, which make it melan- 
choly to contemplate the effect of a serious dimi- 
nution of the Protestant clergy. In many places 
the clergyman has been the only resident gentle- 
man, the only friend and adviser, perhaps the 
only physician of the poor. His residence among 
them has been a check to licentiousness, and an 
encouragement to civilization; and what he has 
received from the people, has at least been spent 
among them, and often returned with interest 
arising from his own fortune. 

It has been said that the Roman Catholic 
religion has had an injurious effect on civil pros- 
perity, which is observable in Roman Catholic 
countries ; and it is scarcely disputed that those 
countries, where that religion has been preserved 
in its integrity, have not been either the most 
enterprising, or the most prosperous, and the 
Roman Catholic population of Ireland is not the 



40 FOUNDATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

most industrious part of its inhabitants. But I 
will not examine the question how we can connect 
the imputed cause and the effect. We should, 
however, be slow to perpetuate that which may 
be so prejudicial to the temporal interests of our 
fellow subjects, when, in addition, we know that 
our ancestors at least thought the religious tenets 
of Roman Catholics put to serious hazard the 
everlasting welfare of the souls of those who 
professed them. 

Those who not only admit but contend for the 
right of Parliament to deal with Church property 
as they may think proper, may endeavour to 
create a fund, with which, if they do not consider 
the Roman Catholic religion idolatrous and dan- 
gerous to the souls of men, they may make a 
provision for the Romish hierarchy. But I con- 
fess it not only appears to me, that Parliament 
has no right to exercise a discretion with respect 
to Church property, but that the raising of such 
a question will disturb the security of all pro- 
perty. 

It is not disputed, that originally Church 
property was in the nature of a foundation. 
Individuals alienated a certain portion of private 
property for Ecclesiastical purposes. In some 
instances it was a purely voluntary act : sometimes 
it arose from the dictates of conscience, and 



CHURCH ENDOWMENTS INALIENABLE. 41 

sometimes from custom, and so transferred from 
one country to another ; but never was imposed 
by public authority in the manner of a tax ; and 
the only part which arises from public grant 
consists of the additions which may have been 
made by the Crown from the forfeited estates, to 
which it has been shewn that the Protestants have 
a claim on other grounds. If therefore you assert 
and maintain the right, that Parliament may 
alienate the revenues of the Protestant church, 
and may remove the security of all endowments, 
an individual may bequeath an estate, with direc- 
tions that the proceeds are to be employed in 
teaching the Protestant religion according to the 
doctrines of the Church of England, or of the 
Independents, as in a recent case ; but there will 
be no security, that in a few years a Convent may 
not be set up in the neighbourhood ; and the 
people having been induced to change their re- 
ligion, it will be determined that the Roman 
Catholic religion should be taught in the school 
which was endowed for a very different purpose ; 
or a school may be endowed where the Roman 
Catholic religion already predominates, and it 
may be determined that the endowment should 
be applied more liberally than had been in- 
tended. 

I grant that the supposed strong ground of the 



42 ROMANISM NOT THE TRUE CATHOLIC FAITH, 

Roman Catholic case is, that their church was 
originally despoiled of these endowments. But it 
is a part of the case which would not be conceded 
by Latimer, Ridley, or any other of the early 
Reformers. The true and almost the only de- 
fence of the Reformation is, that the Romish 
religion was not the true Catholic faith. 

The right of the Protestant Church to the pro- 
perty of the Church, rests upon the same ground 
which justified the Fathers of that Church in 
separating from the Romish communion at a time 
when schism was still considered a grievous sin. 
It rests upon the same ground which justified 
Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and the whole army of 
martyrs in the Marian persecution, in giving their 
bodies to be burned. 

If the Church of Ireland has no claim to the 
Ecclesiastical property, John Huss and Jerome of 
Prague were schismatic criminals, not martyrs ; 
Luther and Melancthon were heretics ; and the 
Inquisition, however severe, was a tribunal which 
did not originate in injustice. 

It will not be necessary now to consider how 
far the first Irish Church bill, or the views of the 
late Lord Lieutenant, are an invasion of the rights 
of private property. The question has been ably 
argued in that point of view, both as regards the 
rights of the Church, and the rights of individuals. 



APPROPRIATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY, 43 

But there is still another objection to such a 
measure, as it violates an obligation more sacred 
than the rights of property, and is at variance 
with higher interests than those merely connected 
with our estates ; it is inconsistent with the obli- 
gations upon governments to provide for the 
religious instruction of the people, in the manner 
which they believe will be most conducive to their 
everlasting welfare. 

While the government and the chief part 
of the Legislature are professedly Protestant, a 
division of the Church property, in favour of 
Roman Catholics, would go beyond the latitudi- 
narian principle of Paley, that the religion of the 
majority should be the religion of the State. At 
the time Paley wrote, it was impossible to foresee 
the evil which might result from the promulgation 
of this doctrine, or the extent to which it may 
be carried : it may be extended to the case of a 
province, then to a county, at last to a parish ; 
till at length it resolves itself into the voluntary 
principle. Paley, indeed, may have only intended 
that the majority, if free, will establish that reli- 
gion, and that alone, which they believe to be 
true ; but in this case we are governed by the 
decision of the nation at large ; and even Scotland 
in that sense is not an exception ; for when the 
Presbyterian religion was established, she had an 



44 DISSOLUTION OF ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES. 

independant legislature, through whom alone her 
decision could be ascertained ; but a legislature, 
the majority of whom have sworn the Roman 
Catholic religion to be idolatrous, could not give 
an establishment to that Church. 

A nation may indeed find an erroneous, even an 
idolatrous, religion established, and she may not 
be able to correct the evil ; but in that case the 
nation is passive under circumstances which she 
cannot control ; in the other, she is active to do 
what at the same time she declares to be wrong. 

The dissolution of ecclesiastical benefices in 
Ireland, — either for the purpose of providing a 
fund for the Roman Catholic clergy, or to be 
appropriated to secular purposes— can only be 
considered as an approach to the voluntary 
system ; for it is a renunciation of that impor- 
tant principle, that it is the duty of the State to 
provide the whole of the people with instruction 
in that religion which the legislature believes to be 
true, whether they will avail themselves of it or not. 
If you decline instructing them in what you 
believe to be true religion, and do not provide any 
other, the inference is, that you consider religion 
a matter of indifference, — a concession which has 
secured the suffrage of all the enemies of Revela- 
tion. But if you admit that instruction in what 
you believe to be the truth, should not even be 



AX APPROACH TO THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 45 

offered to the people, the Roman Catholic is of 
opinion that you make but a small additional con- 
cession when you teach them that religion which 
they themselves prefer, but which you know and 
acknowledge to be erroneous. In this way the 
orthodox Dissenters, who advocate the voluntary 
principle in England, enter into an unhappy con- 
junction with the enemies of Revelation, and are 
led to patronize Popery, against which their 
ancestors so resolutely contended. 

It will be vain to think of making an approach 
to the voluntary system of Ireland, and to deny it 
in England. As surely as it was anticipated, at 
the time Roman Catholic Emancipation was con- 
ceded, that the next attack would be on the 
Church ; and as surely as that prognostic has been 
realised ; as certainly as it was foretold that you 
could not bind many of the Roman Catholic 
members to abstain from using the privileges 
you would concede to them to the injury of the 
Established Church; and as certainly as they 
have construed the oath which they were required 
to take, with a view to bind them, in a way which 
has been reprobated by several of their own 
body; so certainly will the English Dissenters 
take advantage of the concession in principle 
which will be made, either by mutilating the Pro- 
testant Church or the partial establishment of 



46 ANCIENT VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS. 

the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland. I be- 
lieve, therefore, that an election must be made 
between the maintenance of the Church Establish- 
ment in both countries, or its abandonment in 
both* 

The Dissenters rely much on the fact that 
the primitive Church was maintained by voluntary 
contributions ; forgetting that it is, for the most 
part, of ancient voluntary contributions they 
would despoil the Church ; and that its increase 
was then owing to direct miraculous interposition. 
The wonders of the day of Pentecost added to the 
CJiurch three thousand souls. After the death of 
Annanias and Sapphira, many signs and wonders 
were wrought among the people, and " believers 
were added to the Church, multitudes both of 
men and women/' The Divine Wisdom saw that 
these miraculous interpositions were necessary, 
so long as the sovereign power was opposed to 
Christianity ; but when He was pleased to bring 
the rulers of the world to a conviction of the truth 
of revealed religion, the Church was then left to 
depend on the fulfilment of the duties which de- 
volved on these authorities, in consequence of the 
conviction which they possessed; and it may as well 
be said that the Church should always be in a state 
of persecution, because the blood of the martyrs 
is the seed of the Church, as to say, because the 



EPISCOPACY AND PRESBYTERIAXISM. 4/ 

Church had a measure of success under the volun- 
tary principle, that we should now absolve rulers 
and people from the obvious duty of maintaining 
and disseminating true religion. 

The precedent of the Establishment of the 
Church of Scotland has been often stated in 
defence of the measures formerly proposed for 
Ireland ; but the old Presbyterians would indig- 
nantly have rejected the indifference to divine 
truth evinced in the voluntary principle. The 
only question with them was, which religion 
adhered most closely to the primitive model and 
to primitive truth ? They would have disdained 
the pretence that a question of religion should be 
decided by numbers. 

But it must also be remembered that the 
difference between Episcopalians and Presby- 
terians is doctrinally much less important, 
and much more reconcileable, than that be- 
tween Roman Catholics and Protestants. One 
part of the nation was not chiefly Episcopal, with 
a number of that persuasion scattered through 
the remainder of the country ; on the contrary, 
the middle class were almost unanimous in favour 
of the change, and many of the higher orders did 
not differ, in this respect, from the rest of the 
people. Some of the great families were zealous 
Presbyterians; and even Lauderdale, who so 



48 CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 

long governed Scotland, for a time used his best 
efforts in their behalf. Of the higher orders who 
were attached to Episcopacy, few objected to 
conform to the Presbyterian Church, when they 
had no opportunity for enjoying Episcopal com- 
munion. So that, in relieving the lower orders 
from a religion they did not approve, the landed 
proprietors were not required to pay a religion to 
which they could not conform, and which they 
believed to be deeply involved in serious error. 

The Universities of Scotland, too, were all 
settled on the continental model, and presented 
no difficulty in opposition to the change in re- 
ligion. But above all, Episcopacy, as it exists in 
England, had never been established in Scotland, 
and was never attempted, except during the short 
period when the Presbyterians and other sectaries 
so successfully struggled against it in the reign of 
Charles the Second. Bishop Burnet, in speaking 
of the attempt to establish Episcopacy in Scot- 
land, in the reign of Charles the Second, and 
of the power which was then lodged in the Bishops, 
says : " ThiS w r as plainly the setting Episcopacy 
on another bottom than it had ever been in Scot- 
land before this time ; for the whole body of the 
Presbyterian Presbyters did formerly maintain 
such a share in the administration, that the bishops 



CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 49 

had never pretended to any more than to be their 
settled president, with a negative voice upon 
them." 

So that the people, in the first place, only 
resisted what appeared to them a very recent 
usurpation ; in the course of which, by injudicious 
conduct, the title of Bishop had become odious to 
them; and partly by vacillation, and partly by 
indiscretion, the cause of the popular religion had 
gained such strength at the time of the Revolution, 
that policy suggested the establishment of the 
Presbyterian religion, to which both king William 
and the Parliament of Scotland could not only 
readily but conscientiously consent, as it was the 
religion in which the king was educated, and 
which the majority of the Parliament preferred. 

It is not intended to attribute to the authors 
of the first Irish Church Bill any unworthy 
motives whatever. In regard to time and circum- 
stances, they may have been almost unconsciously 
influenced by the struggle for power which was 
then going on ; but principles which, with great 
deference, I will call erroneous, and which are 
widely spread, are at the bottom of these proceed- 
ings. The government and legislature has often 
had occasion to deal with endowments, and to 
legislate for the Church, consequently a right to 
to do so is assumed; and what used to be the 

D 



50 FIRST IRISH CHURCH BILL. 

exception has become the rule. Those who are 
indifferent to religion, and who at best consider it 
merely as a good moral engine, not an incal- 
culable spiritual benefit; who view it as a useful 
political instrument^ not as a divine institution, — 
such persons may have a preference for one 
religion over another, as more or less conducive 
to the purposes for which the institution is 
valued ; but it is a mere preference ; the truth or 
falsehood of the creed is nothing in their esti- 
mation, as they are inclined to look on all forms 
of Christianity as mere superstition ; consequently 
a very little political advantage will be sufficient 
to induce such persons to give a preference to any 
one of the rival sects. 

It is not intended to attribute principles so ex- 
tremely lax to the chief promoters of the first 
Irish Church Bill ; and the author is well aware 
that some of those who supported it, though too 
fond of daring experiments, are sincere friends 
to religion, and not adverse to the Church; but 
just in proportion as men have more or less pre- 
ference for the religion they profess, on the ground 
simply of its truth, and its divine origin, in that 
proportion will they think it a matter of indif- 
ference whether it shall be supported or not. 

There is a wide difference between the opinions 
prevalent in ancient and modern times in this 



THE REFORMATION. 51 

respect. The controversy in which our ancestors 
were involved, was not between rival sects, as if 
it were a mere party question between Whig and 
Tory, or between Gwelph and Ghibbeline ; their 
inquiry was, What was the decision of Holy 
Scripture in this respect ? What was attested by 
the blood of the martyrs? Had the Roman 
Catholics violated these principles by superadding 
unscriptural doctrines, dangerous to the souls of 
men ? These were important questions, for which 
the Protestant martyrs contended even at the 
stake ; and in consequence^ the English Reforma- 
tion was not effected by the mere will of the 
reigning monarch, nor was it the result of a par- 
liamentary decision between rival sects. 

It must never be lost sight of, that the first 
Reformers did not design to change religion ; it 
appeared to them there could be but one religion, 
and that they wished to reform ; and the neces- 
sity for reform was not denied by the most sincere 
and rigid Roman Catholic. 

Long before the time of Henry VIII. the eyes 
of many were opened to the erroneous doctrines 
of the Church of Rome, in consequence of the 
preaching of Wickcliffe, and the circulation of his 
translation of the Bible, The doctrines of Luther 
and the other German reformers were spreading 
in England, as in every part of Europe, and their 

D 2 



52 THE REFORMATION. 

progress was much favoured by the scandalous 
Jives of the Romish clergy, both secular and 
regular, and other abuses which prevailed to such 
a degree as made Cardinal Pool, and others of the 
Pope's, most rigid supporters, desire that the 
Church should be in some measure reformed. 
Under these circumstances, when Henry found 
that he could not obtain his divorce at Rome, 
his attention was directed to some words which 
had fallen from Cranmer, tending to shew that 
a shorter method might be taken ; when the 
question of the divorce was proposed to that 
excellent man by some courtiers, he declined to 
give any positive opinion himself, but suggested 
" it would be shorter and safer way at once to 
clear it well, if the marriage was unlawful in itself, 
by virtue of any divine precept; for if that were 
proved, then it was certain that the Pope's dispen- 
sation could be of no force to make that lawful 
which God declared to be unlawful f 9 and pro- 
posed that this should be decided by consultation 
with the most learned men in Europe. This pro- 
position struck at once at the infallibility of 
the See of Rome; but it was too acceptable to 
Henry to be disregarded. He determined to adopt 
this course, and the matter was accordingly put 
into Cranmer's hands. 

Cromwell, who was introduced into the king's 



HEXRY VIII. A ROMAN CATHOLIC. od 

service by Wolsey, also favoured the reformed 
doctrines, which enabled the Churchy in her Con- 
vocation, to make approaches towards a reforma- 
tion ; to effect which; even the power of that 
arbitrary monarch would have been unequal, if it 
had not been an object much desired by many of 
those of whom the Convocation was composed. 

Henry was in his heart a Roman Catholic, as 
he was in his life a sensualist ; but the slave of 
his passions, he was made the unwilling, almost 
the unconscious, instrument in the hands of 
Divine Providence. Still the Reformation was but 
little advanced in Henry* s time, and the Six 
Articles shew how much he was attached to the 
old superstition. 

The suppression of most of the monasteries was 
designed by Wolsey before the Reformation was 
thought of; his object was to convert them into 
cathedrals, collegiate churches, and colleges, 
which project was carried partly into execution ; 
of which Christ Church Oxford, the Bishoprics 
of Oxford, Gloucester, and others, are ostensible 
witnesses. But the King's necessities, and his 
desire to gratify his favourites, afterwards inter- 
fered to prevent the full execution of the CardinaFs 
intentions. This, however, was overruled by 
Providence for the protection of the infant Refor- 
mation ; and another instance was afforded that 



54 GRANTS OF ABBEY LANDS. 

God can bring good out of evil ; for many of the 
great families being thus put in possession of 
Abbey lands, they acquired an interest in the 
maintenance of the reformed religion, and without 
denying the existence of purer motives. The 
value of this connexion appeared, not only during 
the progress of the Reformation, but afterwards, 
when the Protestant Church was threatened in 
the days of Charles II. and James II. 

The danger of a resumption of these grants has 
apparently now passed away ; but it is hoped that 
some of those noble houses may have a higher 
interest in defending the Church of England, 
than a fear of losing the large estates with which 
the Reformation had invested their ancestors.* 

* It has been asserted, by those who wished to disturb Church 
property, that tithes were originally set apart for three distinct 
and specific purposes, viz. the maintenance of the clergy, the 
support of the poor, and the keeping of the ecclesiastical edi- 
fices. It would be difficult to find positive historical authority 
for this three-fold distribution ; but as far as our information 
goes, the obligation is strictly performed by the clergy. The 
tithes were originally vested in the Bishop ; and at that time the 
clergy were collected about the Cathedral, from whence they were 
sent by the bishop on missionary expeditions about the diocese ; 
and no doubt built what are now the chancels at the different 
stations where they were accustomed to preach and administer 
the sacrament. In time the Lords of Manors, and others, desired 
to have resident priests on their estates ; for which purpose the 
Lord often made a grant of land or glebe ; and the people added 
churches to the chancels for their own accommodation. This 
notion is confirmed by the fact that many of the ancient chancels 



THE REFORMATION. 55 

But to return to the subject before us. As I 
have said before, Henry found, and did not create, 
a disposition favourable to the Reformation ; on 
the contrary, he often repressed it. Even the 
best of the Roman Catholics saw that reform was 
inevitable ; and to his first act, the assumption 
of the supremacy, which was an absolute renun- 
ciation of the authority of the See of Rome, he 
obtained the consent of both Houses of Convoca- 
tion in both provinces. Henry says that title 
first appeared in the Petition of the Convocation 
of the province of Canterbury to the king, but did 
not pass without opposition ; and in the Convoca- 
tion of York, Tunstall protested against it ; but 
Gardiner, afterwards so infamous for the part he 
took in queen Mary's reign, wrote a book enti- 
tled u True Obedience," against the Pope, and in 
favour of the king^s supremacy, in which he drew 
his arguments from the practice of the primitive 
Church; and to this book Bonner supplied a 
preface. These men held their situations during 

are obviously of a much earlier date than the churches ; and in 
some old churches the clergyman still reads from the chancel. 

The Bishop appropriated certain tithes to the priest so located ; 
but there was no obligation to maintain any edifices but those 
originally constructed by the clergy — the cathedrals and the chan- 
cels, which are still kept in repair by ecclesiastical persons, or out 
of ecclesiastical property. The clergy are now, as they ever were, 
forward in assisting the poor ; and there is no evidence of any 
stricter obligation having ever existed. 



56 THE REFORMATION. 

this reign, and concurred in most of Henry's 
measures; and unless we are prepared to class 
those prelates among the Reformers, we must 
absolve the Church from the disgrace of owing the 
Reformation to Henry VIII. ; and we must deny 
to that monarch the glory of more than, in 
general, an unconscious and reluctant participation 
in so good a work ; but even in this we see the 
hand which directs all things according to the 
counsel of His own will; for the Reformation 
acquired consistency in consequence of the slow 
progress which her Reformers were compelled to 
make, each step being, as it were, the consequence 
of the deep conviction of her prelates, under circum- 
stances which made them both fearful and reluc- 
tant to make a change; and the Church was, 
therefore, characterised by that moderation which 
has ever since been one of her peculiar charms. 
But if the Reformers of Henry VIII/s time here 
appear to have contemplated, for a moment, the 
making any ecclesiastical changes, without the 
consent of the Convocation, whatever may have 
been their motives, the great body of the bishops 
appear to have been implicated, and to have fully 
seconded it; for when cardinal Pole wrote to 
queen Mary, urging her to be as resolute in re- 
jecting the supremacy as her father had been in 
acquiring it, he admitted such a proposition could 



TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 5j 

not flow from the Spirituality, who had all com- 
plied so far, and written and declared for it so 
much. They must, therefore, have been either 
unwilling or unconscious instruments ; and it is 
probable they were not aware to what extent 
this increase of prerogative was capable of being 
used. But, in truth, there is some reason to 
believe that the king^s supremacy, to a certain 
extent, was an original prerogative of the kings of 
England ; for there were statutes passed so far 
back as Edward I. and Richard II., which in- 
flicted the penalties of a praemunire for obtaining 
bulls from Rome for translations of Church 
patronage, which interfered with the kings pre- 
rogative. 

The next most important step in the Refor- 
mation of the Church, was the translation of the 
Bible into English. In 1536, a motion was made 
in Convocation, that there should be a translation of 
the Bible, to be set up in all Churches ; and it 
was finally resolved " to petition the king to give 
orders to some to set about it."* 

The first Articles of religion, in this reign, which 
made the Scriptures and the ancient Creeds the only 
standards of religion, and, as Burnet says, ec truly 
stated the foundation of Christian faith/' were 

* Burnet's History of the Reformation. 
D 5 



58 THE SIX ARTICLES. 

agreed upon in Convocation after much consulta- 
tion and long debating. 

It is not a little singular that the famous Six 
Articles, which made the reformation of religion 
appear to retrograde, were passed by the authority 
of Parliament, and I believe were not brought 
before the Convocation. The Mass-book was not 
much altered in this reign ; so that it may fairly be 
said that many of the changes in religion originated 
in the Convocation, and that all were confirmed 
by its authority, though not without much opposi- 
tion ; but I cannot avoid remarking, in this place, 
that the Providence of God appears to have been 
peculiarly manifested in these transactions. If 
Henry VIII. had obtained his divorce at Rome, 
he would have remained the zealous defender of 
the Roman Catholic faith, as he was always, in 
many respects, its secret friend. In that case the 
Roman Catholic corruptions, and the progress of 
the reformed opinions, might have forced the new 
religion on some future and weaker monarch ; but 
then the Reformation would not have assumed the 
form of the Church of England. 

Again, as the cause why the king favoured the 
Reformers was well known, and there was much 
reason to doubt his sincerity, the Popish prelates 
did not fear to concur in his designs ; as they had 
reason to hope his real inclinations would prevent 



EDWARD VI. 59 

a full and final abandonment of his former opi- 
nions. In this way the Reformation obtained a 
sanction; thereby giving it a permanency which it 
wanted in other countries. 

Again, though Henry restrained, he could not 
altogether prevent, the progress of the Reforma- 
tion ; otherwise he would have lost an important 
support in carrying forward his more selfish pro- 
jects ; and his Protestant wives gave such sup- 
port as they could to the religion with which their 
own cause was identified. We find Henry, there- 
fore, to be an important agent, appointed by 
Almighty God ; but the unwilling, or at least the 
unconscious, instrument in bringing about so good 
a work. 

The next great era in the history of the Refor- 
mation, is the reign of Edward VI. In the year 
1552, the Liturgy was revised, and an Act of Par- 
liament passed, directing it to be read ; as also an 
Act allowing, and even recommending, the clergy 
to marry. Articles of religion, to the number of 
forty-two, had previously been settled (it was sup- 
posed by Cranmer and Ridley); and a Convocation, 
which sat this year (1552), agreed to, and con- 
firmed, all these regulations which the Parliament 
had enacted."* Burnet also says : " The Convo- 

* Andrews's Continuation of Henry. 



60 QUEEN ELIZABETH, 

cation at this time agreed to the Articles of reli- 
gion which were prepared the last year." 

In the reign of queen Elizabeth, there can be 
no doubt that the first steps towards the re-es- 
blishing of the Reformation were taken by Parlia- 
ment ; but they chiefly related to matters which 
were previously determined by the ecclesiastical 
authorities. The most important in its conse- 
quences was the Act declaring and confirming the 
queen's supremacy, which, though it occasioned 
the resignation of all the bishops, only put in 
force the doctrine formerly propounded by the 
Convocation, and enacted by Parliament in the 
reign of Henry VIII. ; and as this was repealed by 
the Parliament, without the intervention of the 
Convocation, in the reign of queen Mary, Eliza- 
beth^ Parliament, by repealing the Act of Revo- 
vation, put in force the original determination of 
the Convocation, in the reign of Henry VIII. ; 
and it appears as if the bishops, in queen Eliza- 
beth's reign, resigned their Sees, rather with a 
view to embarrass the Reformation, than from any 
real scruple of conscience arising from the Act of 
Supremacy ; as queen Mary herself had used that 
title, when she called her two first Parliaments, 
and her two first Convocations. 

The Church of England claims, and with some 
reason, to be the true Church of Christ ; and in 



REFORM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 61 

separating from Rome, she avoided, rather than 
incurred, the guilt of schism. That the changes 
effected at the Reformation were brought about 
by the State cannot be denied ; as they originated 
in the disgust which the people began to feel at 
the vices of the Romish clergy, and the abuses of 
the Church of Rome. But I have looked into the 
three great periods at which the work of Reforma- 
tion was effected, and I find that the concurrence 
of the Church was required and always obtained ; 
there was no question then whether the Church 
of England, or rather that portion of the Catholic 
Church existing in England, had, or had not, re- 
formed herself; but whether a portion of the 
Church, or a single nation, had a right to take 
the work of Reformation into their own hands, 
in opposing the Act of Uniformity. 

It was urged by Feckenham, Abbot of Westmin- 
ster, in 1559, from his place in Parliament, that 
fC the consent of the whole Church, in all ages, 
with the perpetual succession of Saint Peter's 
chair, ought to weigh more w T ith them than a few 
new preachers." The answer w r as, that by the 
Epistles of St. Paul, every Church has power in 
itself to order the forms of their worship, and the 
administration of the sacraments among them."* 

* Burnet's History of the Reformation. 



62 QUEENS* SUPREMACY. 

Evidently the latter part of the Thirty-fourth 
Article of the Church of England is intended to 
meet this objection, where it is said, " Every par- 
ticular or national Church hath authority to 
ordain, change, or abolish, ceremonies or rights of 
the Church ordained by man's authority, so that 
all things be done to edifying/ 5 Some of the 
bishops, who resigned in the reign of queen Eliza- 
beth, (Bonner, for instance, and even the respec- 
table Tunstall,) had acknowledged the supremacy 
of Henry, Edward, and Mary ; and still they 
retired, rather than recognise, that part of the 
prerogative of queen Elizabeth, though they did 
not question her title to the crown ; for they sat 
in her first Parliament. Thus they objected to a 
form of Church government, approved by the 
Ecclesiastical Council, by a decision founded on 
the arguments of some of their own body ; some 
of whom were among the recusants ; and they may 
therefore be more properly considered guilty of 
schism, than the queers government be accused of 
overruling the ecclesiastical by means of the civil 
authority. But the doctrine of the Church is 
chiefly expressed by her Articles, which, it appears, 
entirely originated with the ecclesiastical autho- 
rities ; and those determined on in the time of 
queen Elizabeth are still the standard to which the 
members of the Church of England are under an 



THE CONVOCATION. 



63 



obligation to conform. Fuller tells us they were 
confirmed by the Convocation, in 1562, according 
to the title prefixed to them ; but were not con- 
firmed by the Parliament till 1571; nine years 
afterwards ; so that the legislature, instead of 
being too forward, was rather backward in this 
important matter; but ultimately everything ap- 
pears to be in order. The Articles of religion, 
which were a little altered from those in king 
Edward's time, were set forth "for avoiding 
diversities of opinions, and for the establishing of 
consent, touching true religion," by the represen- 
tatives of that part of the Church of Christ which 
existed in the realm of England ; and the Parlia- 
ment did no more than give effect to their decisions, 
by requiring conformity to them ; and in so doing, 
cannot be said to have gone beyond their proper 
province. 

If the Methodist Conference, which represents 
that body, as the Convocation then did the 
Church existing in England, were to set forth what 
they conceive to be the real doctrines of the late 
Rev. John Wesley, by whose opinions the whole 
body profess to govern themselves, they could not 
be said to violate any public right, or do any pri- 
vate wrong, if they were to obtain a bill to pre- 
vent any persons who did not conform to 
these doctrines from officiating in their chapels. 



64 THE CHURCH REFORMED HERSELF. 

If that part of the Church which existed in 
England, had a right to reform herself> she exer- 
cised that right in the most legitimate manner ; 
and the legitimacy of her power can only be dis- 
puted by those who, like Feckenham, would require 
that any corruptions should be continued till the 
consent of all Christendom to a reform should be 
expressed ; or till the approbation of St. Peter's 
chair (from whence many of the corruptions pro- 
ceeded, and in whose usurpations they in part 
originated,) could be obtained. And when can 
the Roman Catholic Church shew such authority 
as Feckenham required ? Never ; for the Greek 
Church, and many of the Asiatic Churches, have 
never been consenting parties since the Roman 
Pontiff usurped the title of Universal Bishop, 
or since the four first General Councils. 

The Convocation of the Church of England had 
as much right to set forth the true doctrines of 
religion, as the small number, who assumed to be 
representatives of the Latin Church at Trent, had 
to give authority to many of the corruptions of 
their Church, which had previously been matter 
of practice, rather than asserted either in the way 
of doctrine or of discipline.* 

* We are too ready to allow that the Bishop of Rome was 
formerly the head of the Christian world. He was no doubt the 
spiritual head of the Western Empire ; but it was the decay of 



IRISH REFORMATION, 65 

I have made this hasty review of some of the 
principal circumstances which occurred, in bringing 
about the English Reformation ; as it appeared to 
me highly interesting, at the present moment, to 
examine how far the Parliament of this country 
had ever dealt arbitrarily with the Church, or im- 
properly interfered with her spiritual jurisdiction ; 
and it seems perfectly relevant to the present sub- 
ject, as the Churches of England and Ireland are 
now united by the only obligations which can be 
conceived to bind a legislative body, and which the 
Protestant Peers of Ireland may claim to be indis- 
soluble; as they relinquished their hereditary right 
to seats in the Legislature, to secure the Protestant 
Church of Ireland, and to preserve inviolable the 
union between the two countries. But it remains to 
be seen, whether the Reformation in Ireland was 
brought about chiefly by ecclesiastical authority. 

Perhaps the history of that country affords no 
instance of any great change being accomplished 
in Ireland with perfect regularity. The cha- 
racter of the people, and the circumstances in 
which she was placed ; the division among her 



the Eastern Empire which seemed to confine the Christian world 
within the limits which acknowledged the authority of the Roman 
Pontiff. If the Eastern Empire had continued in its glory, the 
Patriarch of Constantinople would have successfully resisted the 
pretensions of the Roman See. 



66 IRISH CHURCH. 

inhabitants, partly colonists at different periods, 
and partly aboriginists ; her viceregal government; 
very imperfect state of civilization, and the 
want of subordination in all classes, would always 
prevent perfect order and regularity, and especially 
on interesting occasions. Nor did these circum- 
stances first occur on the introduction of the 
Protestant religion, as the civil feud existed pre- 
viously between the colonists and the abori- 
ginal inhabitants. So there was also a feud, both 
before and after the Conquest, between the reli- 
gion of the ancient Irish, and the religion of the 
See of Rome. Archbishop Usher has clearly proved 
that the religion of the ancient Irish differed ma- 
terially from that of Rome ; but, as Dr. Johnson 
said, anything may be denied ; so, in this instance, 
the conclusion to which Archbishop Usher's argu- 
ment seemed to lead, has been questioned by 
Mr. Moore in his History of Ireland. 

The difference between the religion of the 
ancient Irish, and that of the Church of Rome, 
may have arisen either from some of the early 
Christians having derived their religion from the 
Asiatic Churches, of which it will be seen pre- 
sently there is very sufficient evidence ; or it may 
have arisen from those who were subsequently 
instrumental in the conversion of that portion of 
the inhabitants, who remained heathens, having 



TIME OF CELEBRATION OF EASTER, 67 

commenced their labours before the Western 
Churches became essentially corrupt. 

The difference, with respect to the time of the 
celebration of Easter, is a proof that the Irish did 
not derive their Christianity from Rome ; and it is 
admitted that they had little in common with that 
See, whose authority they by no means esteemed 
infallible. The Irish Church celebrated Easter on 
the fourteenth day, whenever it happened on a 
Sunday ; but the fifth General Council regulated 
the time for keeping Easter according to the rule 
now observed by all the Western Churches. If, 
therefore, either the supremacy of Rome had been 
allowed, or even if the Irish Church had not been 
perfectly independent, they would have sub- 
mitted to the solemn adjudication of this point ; 
by what would, in that case, have been superior 
authority. But they did not take that course ; and 
even w T hen a Synod was held at Strenaeshalch, 
said to be the same as Whitby in Yorkshire, at 
which both the kings, Oswin and Alefrid, attended ; 
and king Oswin urged the duty of keeping one 
order and rule, Colman, a bishop, who was sent 
from Ireland, said the Easter he had observed he 
had received from his ancestors, and that it was 
the same observed by the blessed St. John, the 
disciple whom Jesus loved, and of all the churches 



68 CONTROVERSY CONCERNING EASTER. 

founded by him.* In this declaration there is 
not only a dereliction of the authority of the 
Western Church, but an appeal, as it were, to an 
Asiatic origin, which is only to be accounted for 
by supposing their first Christian instruction was 
derived from Asia. 

But it further appears that in 630, according 
to Mr. Moore, the attention of the Bishop of 
Rome, Honorius, was drawn to the controversy 
concerning Easter, who addressed a letter to the 
nation of the Scots,t not to consider their own small 
number wiser than all the ancient and modern 
Church of Christ. This exhortation is remark- 
able for not evincing any of the modern preten- 
sions of the See of Rome ; there is no assertion 
of the infallibility even of a General Council ; no 
requisition to obey the See of Rome as dutiful 
children ; but, simply, an exhortation to distrust 
their own infallibility. Moreover, we find this 
letter failed of its effect, and this matter is referred 
by a deputation to the heads of cities, not to the 
head of the Church, as the case is stated by 
Mr. Moore ; and though the deputation were sent 
as children to their mother, they report not an 
Apostolic determination of the question, but their 

* Bede. f The common name of the Irish, 



COLUMBANUS. 69 

own observation, that various nations kept Easter 
at the same time as the Church of St, Peter. 
But this mission, after all, was not to the Bishop 
of Rome, who had already expressed his opinion ; 
but is sent in search of evidence upon which the 
Irish Church themselves were to decide. 

Whether the ancient Irish were wrong or right, 
is here out of the question ; but this controversy 
so long continued, shews that Mr. Moore is under 
a mistake, when he urges the appeal made to the 
heads of cities, as if it were a submission to Papal 
authority ; and adds, that the Roman practice on 
this point was ascertained and adopted ; for he 
himself admits, in a subsequent page, that it was 
only adopted in the southern part of the kingdom. 

But this controversy, with respect to the keep- 
ing of Easter and the mission to Rome, is much 
too instructive to be dismissed in the summary 
way in which it was disposed of by Mr. Moore. 
It was one upon which the Irish were peculiarly 
tenacious. St. Columba, called Columbanus, left 
it in charge to his successors to observe the time 
of celebrating Easter on Sunday, from the 14th to 
the 20th of the moon, after the custom of his 
predecessors, and contrary to the practice of the 
Church of Rome.* 

* Bede, Lib. iii. Cap. iv. Sir James Ware. 



70 CUMIAN TO SEGEXIUS. 

Subsequently to the controversy between Col- 
man and Wilfred, at Whitby, Cumian, Abbot of 
Hy, perceiving so great a schism in the Irish 
Church,* in an epistle to Segenius, declares his 
intention of carefully examining the question ; and 
which he proposes to do, not by an inquiry into 
what the Bishop of Rome had determined, for 
of that he was made aware by the letter from 
Pope Honorius, but by " taking the advice of the 
Apostle, to prove all things, and hold fast to that 
which is good." Then he says he " entered at the 
Sanctuary of God, i. e., I turned over the Holy 
Scriptures, I studied History, and lastly, all the 
Cycles I could find." He then says he consulted 
different bishops as to their separation from the 
Apostolic See. Those bishops so assembled, he 
says, sent " some, of whose wisdom and humility 
was had good experience, as it were children to 
their mothers f 3 and " some of them arriving at 
Rome,' J "there they abode at an Inn, with Grecian, 
Hebrew, Scythian, and Egyptian," where they 
all celebrated Easter in the Church of St. Peter ; 
and the result w T as, the Irish bishops adopted the 
Roman Cycle, first in the south, and not for some 
time afterwards in the north, not without vehe- 
ment opposition, and the rebuke of the monks of 

* Sir James Ware, Vol. II., p. 37. 



MISSION TO CONSTANTINOPLE. *\ 

Hy, who reproved Curwen sharply as a deserter 
from the tradition of his ancestors.* 

Mr. Moore states the circumstance and the fact 
of this mission to Rome somewhat differently ; as 
he says, the deputation was sent to the heads of 
cities, but adds, as if Rome alone was concerned, 
that they sent to Rome as children to their mo- 
ther ; whereas Cumian's account is, that the de- 
putation was sent as children to their mothers, 
and that some only arrived at Rome, evidently 
implying that their inquiries were directed to 
more than one of the heads of cities. 

It further appears, that other heads of cities 
were then considered of co-equal authority with 
Rome ; for though the controversy was settled 
in Ireland, it appears, from some Greek writers of 
the life of St. Chrysostom, that the Welch sent a 
deputation to Constantinople, in the time of 
Methodius, to consult him as to the controversy 
concerning Easter. 

We should be at a loss to account for the ex- 
treme pertinacity with which the Irish adhered to 
a custom which now appears so immaterial, and 
which Mr. Moore attributes to their usual fond- 
ness for ancient usages, if it were not for the ex- 
pression used by Colman, after the conferences at 

* Sir James Ware, 



72 CHURCHES OF ASIA. 

Whitby, that their usage in this respect was the 
same observed "by the blessed St. John, the 
disciple whom Jesus loved." 

Making use of the same arguments as Poly- 
crates, who, Eusebius tells us, presided over the 
churches of Asia in the second century, and who, 
in a letter to Victor, Bishop of Rome, says, " We 
therefore observe the true and genuine day ; * * * 
for in Asia the great lights are dead which shall 
be raised again on the day of the Lord^s advent. 
* * * Philip, one of the twelve Apostles ; and, 
moreover, John, who leaned on the Lord^s breast ; 
moreover, Poly carp, Bishop of Smyrna, and 
martyr ; * * * these all kept the day of Easter 
on the fourteenth day." 

Mr. Moore, however, truly observes that the 
Irish time of keeping Easter was not exactly con- 
sistent with the Asiatic tradition, as the Irish 
always kept the festival on a Sunday, and only 
on the fourteenth day, when it happened to 
be Sunday, — a variance which did not escape the 
penetration of Colman's antagonist, Wilfred, 
But it appears, from the history of Socrates Scho- 
lasticus, that there were various opinions with 
respect to the time of keeping Easter. He says, 
"Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who afterwards 
suffered martyrdom under Guadianus, communi- 
cated with Anicetus, Bishop of Rome, and made 



TIME OF EASTER. *J3 

no separation from him on account of this festi- 
val, although Polycarp himself kept Easter on 
the fourteenth day. Some therefore, in Asia the 
Less, kept the fourteenth day ; others, in the East- 
ern parts, celebrated that feast on the Sunday."* 

Ireneeus, second Bishop of Lyons, says, in a 
letter to Victor, Bishop of Rome, " The mystery 
of our Lord's resurrection ought to be celebrated 
of a Sunday f- but he adds (after observing that 
when Polycarp came to Rome, there had been some 
small controversy between him and Anicetus, with 
respect to the previous fast), " Neither could Ani- 
cetus persuade Polycarp not to observe it, because 
he had always kept with John, the disciple of our 
Lord, and the other Apostles, with whom he had 
been conversant ; nor did Polycarp induce Anicetus 
to observe it." These things being thus, they re- 
ceived the communion together, and Anicetus 
permitted Polycarp to consecrate the elements 
in his own church."f 

* History of Socrates Scholasticus, Lib. v. p. 345. 

f Eusebius, Lib. v. pp. 87, 88 — From this controversy we 
may form a judgment how far the modern pretensions of the See 
of Rome were asserted or submitted to at that day. Victor, 
Bishop of Rome, did threaten an excommunication against the 
Churches of Asia ; but Poly crates, and the other bishops, said, 
ki We ought to obey God rather than men.'' And Irenseus places 
Polycarp and Anicetus on a level; and speaking to Anicetus, says, 
1 * Those Presbyters who presided over the Church which you now 
govern ;" allowing him no greater extent of government than over 

E 



74 PASCAL CYCLE. 

If, when Irenseus says the festival ought to be 
kept on a Sundays he meant to express his preference 
to the Western practice, he probably would have 
said so ; as we find, from Socrates, that some of 
the Western churches kept Easter on a Sunday ; 
and knowing they differed from Rome, we may 
suppose that their practice, and that which Irenseus 
recommends, was that followed by the Irish ; for 
the Church of Lyons was a daughter of the 
Church of Smyrna, at which we need not be sur- 
prised, as Lyons and Vienne were then the two 
most considerable commercial cities in France ; 
and communication with Smyrna was probably 
much more easy than with Rome over the Alps. 

Adhelm, Bishop of Sherburn, at the end of the 
same century, informs us that the British and 
Irish derived their Pascal Cycle from Severus 
Sulpitius, a monk of Gaul ; and Sulpitius, as well 
as Germanus, who is said to have instructed St. 
Patrick, were reputed to have been disciples of 
Martin of Tours.* An ancient Irish author, pub- 
lished by Spelman, affirms that St. John the 
Evangelist chanted the Gallican course ; and it is 

the See of Rome. Besides Irenaeus, in his book on Heresies, 
says, li If there were any doubt concerning the least article, ought 
we not to have recourse to the most ancient churches where the 
Apostles lived, putting Smyrna and Ephesus on the same footing 
as Rome." 

* Palmer on Antiquity of English Liturgy. 



ST. PATRICK. 75 

not a little singular, as well as confirmatory of the 
idea that the Church of Ephesus was of coequal 
authority with that of Rome, that we have Polycarp 
and Irenseus, according to Eusebius — Polycrates, 
according to Socrates — andColman (an Irish bishop 
in the seventh century), — holding the same argu- 
ments as to the source and authority from whence 
they had the time of keeping Easter. 

It appears from the letter of Cumen, who 
wrote some time about the middle of the seventh 
century, that the Roman Cycle began to be 
observed in Ireland in his time. We observe, 
also, the controversy between Colman and Wil- 
fred took place about the year 635 : we may fix, 
therefore, the middle of the seventh century 
as the time at which the Irish mode of keeping 
Easter was first brought into question. 

If, then, Mr. Moore is correct in representing St. 
Patrick's mission to have taken place so late as 432, 
and if he was really appointed by the Roman See, 
how did it occur that he was not acquainted with 
the decree of the General Council, held at Nice 
in 325, which determined the period at which 
Easter should be kept near a century before? 
and if this Patrick was, as Mr. Moore represents 
him, the Apostle of Ireland, how did it happen 
that the Irish abandoned the Roman Cycle, which, 

e2 



7'6 ST. PATRICK. 

if he came from Rome, he must have introduced ? 
and why did they adopt the Cycle of Sulpitius, 
which was derived from the Church of Lyons r 
The fact is, that either the Irish had received pre- 
vious Christian instruction; and Mr. Moore^s 
Patrick, whom he would represent as distinct, is 
the same as Palladius, often called Patrick by the 
the Romans ; or Patrick did not proceed from 
Rome, and was not aware of the customs of the 
Roman See, and had received both his commis- 
sion and his Christian instruction from the Gal- 
lican Church, which then followed Asiatic cus- 
toms, and acknowledged the See of Ephesus as its 
head, and St. John for its founder, 

History has recorded so little with respect to 
Ireland during the time of which we speak, and 
the period is so remote, that the circumstances 
are involved in a degree of mystery very fa- 
vourable to the frauds and falsehoods of later 
tradition. Obviously, several persons had the 
name of Patrick, and the name may have been 
taken from reverence for the founder of Chris- 
tianity in Ireland, without a fraudulent intention. 

Prosper says, " Palladius, the Bishop, was first 
sent, who is otherwise called Patrick, who suf- 
fered martyrdom among the Scots."* Terechen 

* Sir W. Betham's Irish Antiquarian Researches, Part II. 
p. 296. 



ST. PATRICK* 77 

savs, the later miracles of Patrick were accom- 
plished after the second year of Lothaire's reign ; 
and as Lothaire became king a. d. 428, his 
second year was 430, the very year Palladius was 
sent, by Celestine, to the Scots.* He adds, Pope 
Celestine^s Legate, or Nuncio, was also called 
Patrick. The evidence which establishes the 
identity of the Roman Patrick and Palladius, 
whose mission failed, is so strong, that the only 
way in which it has been attempted to avert the 
consequences has been by placing the mission of 
another Patrick, whom they assert to have been 
also commissioned by Rome, immediately after 
the mission of Palladius, to whom they attribute 
so many of the circumstances which probably 
belong to the first Patrick, the true Apostle of the 
Irish, as to make it very difficult to disentangle 
the genuine history.f In this way the first 
Patrick is made to acknowledge pretensions of 
which perhaps he never even heard ; but the an- 
cient Irish themselves were aware of the attempt ; 
for Ardius (says Segenius) " wished him to change 
his instruction, i. e. (according to Sir W. Be- 

* Sir W. Betham's Irish Antiquarian Researches, Part II. 
P. 286. 

f In the year 43S, a Committee was appointed to purify the 
Irish annals. This was the sixth year of the Roman Patrick ; but 
Aydus tells us, that in his time the tradition of the country 
supported the true history. 



78 



ST. PATRICK. 



tham) to make it more consistent with the new- 
fangled stories promulgated a short time before, 
for the purpose of persuading the Scots that Pal- 
ladius, or the Roman missionary of 430, was the 
same person as their venerated Patrick."* 

The Romanists, however, seem hardly to have 
been aware of the difficulties with which they had 
to contend in making the mission of the true 
Patrick to have been after that of Palladius. As 
it was necessary, not merely to confound the acts 
of Palladius and Patrick, which has been done by 
these early writers, either ignorantly or by design ; 
but also to deny the existence of Christianity 
previous to the time of Palladius, as it would de- 
rogate from the honour of the Roman Apostle to 
suppose he had been sent to Christians, not to the 
heathen ; and the question would naturally arise, 
what were the opinions of these early Christians, 
and from whence was their Christianity derived ? 
Accordingly, Mr. Moore represents Palladius as 
rejected by the Pagans, not by the Christians ; 
but in contradistinction, the Venerable Bede says 
Palladius was sent to the Scots believing in 
Christ. 

Mr. Moore intimates his belief that Pelagius, 
as well as his disciple Celestine, were Irishmen ; 

* Ancient Religion, Part II. p. 317. 



ST. PATRICK. 79 

and he admits, on the authority of St. Jerome, 
that their heresy was common to others of his coun- 
trymen ;* and the sayings set forth by the Romish 
Church, as those of St. Patrick, shew that their 
Patrick was not sent to convert the heathen, but 
to bring a Christian people into subjection to the 
See of Rome. " For an age, God be thanked, you 
(the missionary clergy) have been calling upon the 
Churches of the Scots to enter paradise in union 
with the Romish Church, so that, as Christians, 
they might unite with you in the same service as the 
Romans."t We know, therefore, that Christianity 
had made considerable progress in Ireland before 
the time of Palladius, consequently before the 
time of the Roman Patrick, who is placed, by 
Mr. Moore, after Palladius, who could not, there- 
fore, have been driven from Ireland by heathens 
on account of his Christianity, as they had already 
Christians living along with them ; and it is highly 
probable that thus early Christianity was intro- 
duced into Ireland by one w T ho bore the name of 
Patrick, which designation was subsequently 
usurped by others, on account of the authority 
which it carried with it ; and this is borne out by 

* Moore's History, p. 208. 

f Sir William Betham, Part II. p. 283. It appears also, from 
the book of Armagh, that Colman, the Bishop, offered his Church 
of Cloincam to Patrick. 



80 PELAGIAN HERESY. 

St. Patrick's Epistle to Sertorius, which was evi- 
dently sent by Roman soldiers, and the last Roman 
legion left Britain in 404, near thirty years before 
the mission of the Roman Patrick. We may also 
conjecture that many circumstances which per- 
tained to the true Apostle of the Irish, were 
handed down by tradition, and appended, at a sub- 
sequent period, to the histories, partly true and 
partly fabulous, which narrated the lives of his 
successors; consequently, it is not unlikely 
that the true Patrick came from Gaul, was in con- 
nexion with the Church of Lyons, and did 
derive from thence the customs of the Irish 
with respect to Easter, and also some other par- 
ticulars of their ritual in which they differed from 
Rome. 

It is not improbable that the ancient Irish 
Church was infected with the Pelagian heresy. 
Pelagius was a Briton ; his opinions prevailed in 
Spain, with which country the Irish had pretty 
frequent intercourse ; he is said also to have taken 
refuge in Ireland. We are informed, by Sir 
William Betham, that "in the heads of the 
books in the version of the New Testament in the 
book of Armagh, written by Ardens, is found the 
name of Pelagius fixed as the author of the expo- 
sitions and explanations/ 5 We are bound in charity, 
therefore, to admit that the mission of the monk 



ROMAN SEE. 81 

Augustine to Britain, and the mission of Palladius 
to Ireland, may have been suggested by a desire 
to rescue the inhabitants of these islands from 
an heretical opinion, and not by ambition. 

The See of Rome had not then placed itself in 
the temple of God, " shewing himself that he is 
God f and though the mystery of iniquity had 
begun to work a centre of influence, placed 
where civilization and information most prevailed, 
and where the Scriptures were most abundant, 
may have had a beneficial effect in repressing er- 
roneous opinions so likely to prevail in distant 
quarters, at a time when intercourse was so 
tedious and difficult ; the Almighty may, therefore, 
have permitted the Roman authority to prevail 
till she apostatized ; since which her influence has 
gradually declined, as previously it almost imper- 
ceptibly increased. 

While the Roman See only claimed considera- 
tion, as' one of those supposed to be founded by 
the Apostles, and only exercised her superiority 
in the way of admonition and advice — which was 
the case at the time we speak — no evil could arise 
from attention to such authority, especially when 
Rome could claim to be the Mother Church. But 
that was not always the case, as we see in Ireland, 
from the assertion of one of the Irish bishops, that 
their Christianity was derived from Ephesus ; and 

e 5 



82 GREEK CHURCH. 

we also learn that there was a Greek Church in 
Ireland, a portion of which remained even in the 
time of Usher. 

Mr. Moore endeavours to evade the obvious 
inference, that this portion of the Irish Church 
must have been independent of Rome ; * * * 
because he says, at that time the heads of 
the Greek Church were on the best terms with 
the See of Rome, But he forgets that the occasion 
of difference had not then arisen ; for the See of 
Rome had not then taken the title of Universal 
Bishop, which was so offensive to the pretensions 
of the Patriarch of Constantinople. 

This Greek Church may have been either a 
remnant of the Church of St. John, or the descen- 
dants of some colonists from the Church of Con- 
stantinople ; if it does not prove independance, it 
is because Rome did not then claim the depen- 
dance of foreign and distant churches ; though 
that See, before her apostacy, felt and prac- 
tised the duty of encouraging missions for the 
conversion of the heathen, or for confirming 
those recently converted. 

Mr. Moore further endeavours to establish an 
identity between the religion of the ancient 
Irish and the modern Roman Catholics, because 
they celebrated the Eucharist, which they called 
the Mass, and the " Sacrifice of Salvation." The 
word Mass was anciently used for prayer ; and 



MASS AND SACRIFICE. 83 

the Communion in the first Prayer-book of our 
Edward VL (whom the Roman Catholics will not 
claim as a good son of the Church) is still called 
the Mass. The word sacrifice is said* to have been 
used in the same sense as we do sacrament ; and 
the minister was said to give, as the people 
were said to receive, the sacrifice, meaning that 
which was set apart for holy uses. Adamnon, an 
early Irish Christian, is said, by Mr. Moore, to 
have used the expression " making the body of 
Christ." Now this Adamnon, though no doubt a 
pious Christian, lived in the seventh and eighth 
centuries ; and after a visit to Britain, in the time 
of Alfred, abandoned the custom of his predeces- 
sors as to keeping Easter ; and having adopted a 
better rule in that respect, he may have there also 
acquired an erroneous notion as to transubstantia- 
tion ; and therefore affords no proof, in that re- 
spect, of the faith of the ancient Irish. 

Mr, Moore is constrained to acknowledge that 
John Scotius Eregina at least declared u that the 
Sacrament of the Eucharist is not the true body 
and the true blood of Christ ;" and to avoid the 
obvious inference from such a declaration from so 
ancient and distinguished an authority, unques- 
tionably Irish, he has no other resource but boldly 
to assert " that the Catholic doctrine, on this point, 

* Translation of Sir James Ware. 



84 JOHN EREGINA, 

has always been that the body of Christ is under 
the symbols, not corporeally or carnally, but in a 
spiritual manner." If this exposition of the doc- 
trine of the Church of Rome had been propounded 
earlier, and by better authority, how much con- 
troversy might have been saved ; but Mr. Moore 
goes further, and admits " that the general opinion 
is, that he (John Eregina) denied the real pre- 
sence;'* and he informs us that the natural bent 
of Eregina^s mind makes it highly probable that 
the impression so generally received is correct; 
but he does not inform us how it occurred that 
the individual who advanced an opinion so con- 
trary to that now maintained by the Church of 
Rome, was held in high estimation. Eregina 
was consulted on the doctrines of grace and 
predestination by Hincmarus, Archbishop of 
Rheims, and Pordulus, Bishop of Laon, and by 
Charles the Bald, upon the controversy of the 
Eucharist.* 

The fact is, the doctrine of transubstantiation, 
as well as that of image worship, which was con- 
troverted about the same time, were now, for the 
first time, asserted by authority ; though they had 
been growing up in the Church for a considerable 
time, and were not established without consider- 
able difficulty and much controversy ; and pro- 

* Sir James Ware, Vol. II. p. 60. 



SEDULIUS. 85 

bably would never have been maintained, if it had 
not been for the additional importance which they 
gave to the Romish priesthood. 

The only two authorities quoted by Mr. Moore ^ 
in support of his assertion that the doctrine of the 
real presence was held by the Irish, .are Adamnon, 
mentioned before, and Sedulius, who both lived at 
the time these controversies were most active. 
The language attributed to Sedulius might have 
been, and no doubt was, used in a spiritual sense ; 
for to bring him forward on the Romish side, was 
one of the boldest stratagems ever practised ; as 
Archbishop Usher quotes him as supporting the 
verv opposite doctrine, and with what success any 
person may determine. In expounding the words 
of our Saviour, " Do this in remembrance of me,^ 
he useth this similitude : " He left a memorial of 
himself with us, even as if one who was going a 
far journey should leave some token with one 
whom he loved;" and he quotes Claudius, 
" because bread doth confirm the body, and wine 
doth make blood in the flesh, therefore one is 
mystically referred to the body of Christ, and the 
other to the blood." 

Mr. Moore would next persuade us that the 
Irish maintained the Romish doctrine of purga- 
tory. He does this upon the authority of an early 
Irish Synod— to which, however, we cannot 



86 ST, BRIDGET. 

submit^ as he does not give us the date, — and an 
old Irish missal also without date; and a tract 
attributed to Cummion, but which may have been 
written by a much later author. He also quotes 
the author of a Life of St. Bridget, who, he says, 
wrote in the seventh century according to Ware ; 
but I cannot find that Sir James Ware gives any 
date to the authors of these Lives of St. Bridget, 
except Animosus, of whom he expressly says, he 
is not certain that he places him in the proper 
century, as there were many of that name ; and one 
Anmcaid, Bishop of Kildare, (not an unlikely person 
to write the life of St. Bridget,) died in 981. But 
in contravention of evidence so slight and unsatis- 
factory, Usher quotes the Books of Tribus Habi- 
ticulis, attributed to St. Patrick, where it is said 
there are but three habitations under the power o^ 
Almighty God, the kingdom of heaven, hell, and 
the present world.* Usher also quotes an ancient 
Synod among the Cotton Manuscripts, which 
says, " the soul being separated from the body, is 
presented before the tribunal of Christ ; and it is 
not carried into life, till the Lord hath judged it ; 
or into pain, unless the Lord do damn it.** Upon 
this point we find Archbishop Usher supported 
by the opinions of Mr. Moore's own authorities, 
Sedulius, and also Adamnonus, who says, " that 

* Sir James Wa;e, Vol. I. p. 25. Idem. p. 29. 



CLAUDIUS. 8/ 

after this life either death or life succeedeth," and 
that " death is the gate by which we enter into one 
kingdom." Sedulius also says " that it is impious 
to adore any besides the Father., the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost."* Mr. Moore sums up a very meagre 
argument on this subject, by asserting that the 
only point on which the ancient Irish differed from 
the Roman Catholics of the present day, was as to 
the marriage of the clergy, which he admits was 
permitted. But he has not condescended to 
notice many particulars on which Archbishop 
Usher shews most satisfactorily that their princi- 
ples and practice were diametrically opposite to 
those of the Roman Catholics of the present day. 
Upon his own authority, Sedulius, the Pope's 
messenger, held that miracles would not continue 
in the Church, * for, that the faith increasing, 
miracles were to cease, since they are declared to 
have been given for their sakes who believe not f* 
and " that every miracle is vain which worketh 
not some profit to man^s salvation." 

Next Claudius asserts that St. Peter had a 
Primacy given him over the circumcision ; and 

* Mr. Moore considers Adanmon and Sedulius as good evi- 
dence respecting the religion of the ancient Irish ; for he relies 
chiefly on their authority, in attributing the doctrine of the real 
presence to the Irish ; he must therefore admit that the doctrine 
of purgatory was not held by the Irish. 



88 COMMUNION IN BOTH KINDS. 

adds, that St. Paul was chosen to have a Primacy, 
on founding the Gentile Churches, and that St. 
Paul was not inferior to St. Peter.* And Mr. 
Moore himself is obliged to admit that there is 
evidence in favour of the Communion being 
received in both kinds, though he is pleased to 
consider it inconclusive. In short, whatever may 
have been the points of difference between the 
Irish and the Church of Rome, (and Usher shews 
that in many respects they are the same which 
divide Romanists and Protestants at the present 
moment,) Baronius, a Romish authority, shews 
that the Irish were not in communion with Rome, 
and did not consider themselves bound by the 
decisions of the Western Church ; for he asserts, 
" that all the bishops of Ireland stood up in 
defence of the three Chapters; and when they 
perceived that the Church of Rome received the 
condemnation of the three Chapters, they departed 
from him, and adhered to the schismatics that 
were in Italy, Africa, and other countries, animat- 
ed by the vain confidence that they stood for the 
Catholic faith, while they defended those things 
that were concluded at the Council of Chal- 
cedon."f 

* Sir James Ware, Vol. I. p. 30. 

f Baronius, quoted by Sir James Ware, p. 30. 



ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH. 89 

The ancient British Church seems to have been 
the same as the Irish, and was probably derived 
from the same source. The seven British Bishops, 
who with Donath, Abbot of Bangor, met Augustin, 
the Monk and Romish missionary, at Augustus 
Oak in Worcestershire, refused to adopt the 
Romish computation of Easter, and the Roman 
rite in the administration of baptism, and could 
not therefore have acknowledged the supremacy 
of the Roman See. On the contrary, in an 
ancient manuscript in Corpus Christi College, 
Cambridge, there is this passage : 

iC After the Saxons had become Christians, by 
means of Austin, in such sort as Austin had taught 
them, the Britons would not eat or drink with 
them, because they corrupted, with superstitions, 
images, and idolatry, the true religion of Christ ;"# 
a course exactly similar to that taken by the Irish 
Bishop, Dagamus. Again the Venerable Bede 
tells us, " Even to this day the Britons are in the 
habit of expressing their contempt both for the 
faith and the religion of the Anglo Saxons, and to 
hold no more intercourse with them than with the 
Pagans." 

It is not a little singular that we find not only 



* Our Protestant Forefathers, p. 22, by W. S. Gilly, D.D. 

Prebendary of Durham. 



90 ST. JEROME. 

those early Christians in Ireland and in Britain 
contending for the faith once delivered to the 
Saints against the usurpations of the See of 
Rome,* and in opposition to its image worship 
and superstition ; but we learn from St. Jerome, 
that in the year 397 there was a small body of 
Christians dwelling in the Carthusian Alps, who 
had their own bishops and their own clergy in their 
mountain retreats, who had no image worship, no 
saint worship, no relic worship, no masses for 
the dead, and who allowed their clergy to 
marry.f 

* Milman, in a note, Book II. Chap. 3. of his History of 
Christianity, in reference to the mention whether St. Peter's 
was ever at Rome, says : " With Lightfoot I believe that 
Babylon was the scene of St. Peter's labours ; but I am also 
confident that in Rome, as in Corinth, there were two com- 
munities, a "Petarine and a Pauline, a Judaising and a 
Hellenising Church." These two may have gone on for some 
time, which, as Milman is of opinion, accounts for, and 
solves the difficulties in the arrangement of the succession to the 
Episcopal See of Rome ; but when the Bishop of Rome began to 
aspire to be universal Bishop, the notion that St. Peter was the first 
Bishop of Rome greatly facilitated those pretensions, and probably 
caused the expulsion of the Paulinists, who retreated to the Alps, 
and it is not unlikely were the ancestors of the Waldenses. It is 
not a little singular, that all the ancient Churches, which sepa- 
rated from the Church of Rome previous to her Bishops assuming 
a supremacy, such as the Ancient British and Irish Christians, 
thft early Spanish Christians, and the Syriac Christians in India, 
appear to have been often ignorant of any such pretensions, and 
always to disregard them. 

t St. Jerome, Adv. Vigil, Epist. 53, quoted by Rev. "W. S. 
Gilly, in our Protestant Forefathers. 



ALBIGENSES. 91 

We have also Claude, Bishop of Turin, resisting 
image worship ; Peter Waldo at Lyons, formerly 
the See of Irenseus ; and the Albigenses in the 
south of France \ the Vaudois in Piedmont, sup- 
posed to be descended from the Cathari near 
Cologne. Milman mentions that the Christians 
of Lyons and Vienne were a religious colony from 
Asia Minor and Phrygia. May not some of the 
doctrines for which the Albigenses contended 
have been derived from Irenaeus ; and may not the 
authority of the See of Rome have failed in 
seducing them, as it did other Churches at the 
same period ; because, having derived their ritual 
and discipline from Ireneeus, the disciple of Poly- 
carp, and from the See founded by St. John, and 
not from that assumed to be founded by St. Peter, 
they considered themselves justified in resisting 
the corruptions to which the Western Church had 
by that time given its authority ? * but there are 

* The Spaniards were converted by Martin, a Greek. The 
Council of Toledo, so late as 704, decreed that the Pope had no 
authority in Spain ; and in the Acts of forty Spanish Councils, 
according to Geddes, no mention is made of the Pope or his 
authority ; which he confirms by a quotation from Morales, the 
most learned antiquary of the Spanish nation, who admits that the 
Gothic kings did alone, and without ever consulting the Pope, 
command national Councils to be called; and by these Councils, 
whatsoever was convenient for the faith, and for other matters in 
religion, was ordered ; and he accounts for this by saying, " As 
the first kings were heroes, and not subject to the Pope, so, when 
they became Catholic, the Pope feared to restrain their authority.'* 



92 PHIMACY OF THE 

circumstances of unquestioned notoriety in the 
history of the Romish Church itself, which shew- 
that a division continued between the patriarchs 
of the ancient Irish, and those connected with 
England, long after the controversy with respect 
to Easter had ceased, and it may be after they 
were reconciled to image worship and other grow- 
ing superstitions. 

It is well known that there is a dispute in the 
Church of Rome as to whether the Primacy of 
Ireland belongs to the See of Armagh or Dublin, 
and this was at once settled by Archbishop Usher, 
after the Reformation, in favour of Armagh, on the 
ground of antiquity. If Armagh was the first 
bishopric established in Ireland, independant of 
the Romish See, and if Dublin was the first esta- 
blished in connexion with Rome, we can easily 
see why the controversy can never be settled by 
the Romish Church ; for if they determine in 
favour of Dublin, they admit that St. Patrick, 
the first Christian missionary and bishop in Ire- 
land, was not connected with Rome; if they deter- 
mine in favour of Armagh, they acknowledge many 
bishops who acted in opposition to the authority 
of the Romish Church. Previous to 1161, when 
Gelasius, Archbishop of Armagh, for the first time 
consecrated O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, the 
Prelates of Dublin, with those of Waterford and 



SEE OF ARMAGH. 93 

Limerick, received their consecration from the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, evidently because the 
Irish Bishops had no authority from the See of 
Rome; for St. Bernard,* whose reverence for 
the See of Rome cannot be questioned, tells us 
that the Archbishops of Armagh, for fifteen suc- 
cessions, were chosen by election out of one par- 
ticular family. But Sir James Ware, in his account 
of the Archbishops of Dublin, mentions one circum- 
stance peculiarly interesting, as tending to shew 
a decided difference between the religion of the Irish 
as it originally existed in Armagh and in Dublin ! 
In 1121 the burgesses and clergy of Dublin com- 
plained to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in behalf 
of their elect Bishop Gregory, " that the Bishops 
of Ireland have great indignation towards us, and 
that Bishop most of all who dwelleth at Armagh, 
because we will not submit to their ordinations, 
but will always be under your government," But 
why would they not submit to their ordinations, 
if they considered them valid ? and why did they 
prefer a government so far offrt 

This dependance of the See of Dublin, on that 
of Canterbury, existed previous to the conquest, but 
did not originate in any schism among those pro- 
fessing the ancient religion; for Dr. Charles 

* See Ware's Ireland. t Ibid. 



94 DOCTOR O'CONNOR. 

OConnor, himself a Roman Catholic,, informs us 
that the first act of hostility to the independance 
of the Irish Churchy * was committed by the Danes 
of Dublin, who, from deep-rooted national anti- 
pathy to the Irish, refused to acknowledge the 
jurisdiction of Armagh,and therefore promised obe- 
dience to the See of Canterbury ; this national quar- 
rel first suggested to the court of Rome the facility 
of subduing both." Doctor OConnor afterwards 
says, " A Legatine commission had been granted to 
Gilbert of Limerick, who wrote a book in 1090, 
maintaining that every Missal different from Rome 
is schismatical ; but not one Irish ecclesiastic was 
found to support him in that controversy. Per- 
ceiving, therefore, that nothing could be effected 
by such odious instruments as the Danes, the 
Legatine commission was granted to St. Malachy ; 
but, whether he was too much of an Irishman, or 
whether his gentle manners disqualified him for 
the turbulent task of altering the discipline of a 
whole nation, though he was honoured with the 
pall, he resigned his commission, and returned to 
Clonville, too happy to die in that peaceful solitude 
in the arms of his excellent friend St. Barnard." 

We cannot be surprised at the course taken, in 
this instance, by Malachy at the Monastery of 
Clonville ; he probably saw the Church of Rome 
in its purest, and, in the person of St. Barnard, in 



MALACHY O'MORGAX. 95 

its holiest form. Many corruptions may have 
grown up in his own Churchy which he wished to 
be reformed, especially that by which a member 
of the same sept was always recommended by the 
chiefs to be elected to the same ecclesiastical 
benefice, by which means the McDonald's 
family retained the See of iVrmagh for 208 years ; 
Malachy OMorgan himself being the first who 
was nominated in violation of this pernicious 
custom ; and it was probably with a view to abolish 
this practice, that he was induced to accept the 
appointment of the Danish Prelates in connexion 
with the See of Canterbury. His object, therefore, 
was to seek support from the power of the Roman 
Pontiff against the native chiefs ; but although 
the Pope, with his accustomed policy, granted two, 
and in 1151 foui' palls, by which the prelates of 
the ancient religion were flattered into a partial 
submission ; still he would not trust them ; for in 
1128 the Pope decreed that no archbishop should 
presume to celebrate any Synod within his pro- 
vince without the consent of the Archbishop of 
Dublin.* 

* An attentive consideration of dates will tend to shew that 
the conquest of Ireland by the English was suggested by eccle- 
siastical, and not secular, ambition ; or, we should rather say, 
by the desire of that portion of the Irish Church which had been 
founded by Rome to usurp authority over that more ancient por- 
tion which had an Asiatic origin. In 1121, the Archbishop and 



96 DESMOND, KING OF LEINSTER. 

Good men were then well aware of the danger 
resulting to the Church from absolute kings and 
lawless chiefs ; but they had yet to learn the 
evils which might result from overbearing licen- 
tious ecclesiastics. It is said to be a matter of 
doubt what first induced Henry II. to undertake the 
conquest of Ireland. We find, however, that the 
Pope made previous efforts to establish his autho- 
rity; and in 1151 we see he was partially success- 
ful. In 1155 his famous letter was addressed to 
Henry, i.n which he invests him with the lord- 
ship of Ireland with a feudal dependance on the 
See of Rome ; but the king of England did not 
attempt to take possession, till his assistance is 
solicited by Desmond, king of Leinster, which was 
then a Danish Colony, where the ecclesiastics 
were originally in connexion with Canterbury, 
then a dependant on Rome. Desmond's deposition, 
by an Irish prince, Ossian king of Munster, must 
have been unfavourable to the Romish preten- 

citizens of Dublin complain of the obstructions they experienced 
from the Irish bishops, particularly he who dwelleth at Armagh. 
In 1128, the Pope decrees that no synod should be held without 
permission from the Archbishop of Dublin, which was an effort to 
reduce the Irish Bishops' authority. In 1 151 he grants four palls, 
by which he tried the influence of honorary distinctions ; and 
in 1155 he creates Henry II. Lord of Ireland, finding that no- 
thing will be effectual but force. Henry does not think this offer 
worth his acceptance, till he is induced by Desmond to interfere, 
with whom, Moore admits, he had no previous communication. 



SYNOD OF WATERFORD. 9? 

sions; and though the Danes themselves were 
not fit instruments for the purposes which the 
Pope had in view, they would serve as auxilia- 
ries ; and the expulsion of their prince afforded a 
pretext for the interference of the English arms, 
which induced the Roman Pontiff to offer the 
sovereignty of Ireland, to which he had himself 
no claim, as a bait to Hennas ambition. 

We have further reason for believing that the 
conquest of Ireland originated in a desire to main- 
tain and extend the authority of the See of Rome 
as the cause of Desmond was considered as iden- 
tified with that of the Church ; for on his arrival 
in England " the clergy received him as the bene- 
factor of their order, and entertained him in the 
Monastery of the Augustins with great hospita- 
lity ; * and in a Synod held at Waterford (a Danish 
colony) in 1175, the severest censures of the 
Church were denounced against all those who 
should impeach the donation of the Holy See, 
or oppose its representative^ but though sup- 
ported by that portion of the Irish clergy who 
were in connexion with Canterbury, and possibly, 
in many instances, favoured by others who were 
most oppressed by their chiefs ; still it was long 
before the Irish people could be reconciled to a 

* Encyclopaedia Britannica, Article Ireland. 
| Phelan, p. 54. 

F 



98 WARDEN OF GALWAY. 

dependance on the Italian ecclesiastic, even as- 
sisted by the arms of the English monarch ; for 
so late as 1484, when Pope Innocent VIII. esta- 
blished the collegiate Church of Galway,* his bull 
recites that the people of that place were " civilized 
men, observing the decent rites and customs of 
the English Church (evidently as distinguished 
from the Irish) ; and these customs differed from the 
wild Highland men of that nation, who harassed 
them, so that they could not hear the offices or 
receive the sacraments;" and even in Henry 
VIII/s reign, the Irish questioned the authority 
of Wolsey, the Pope's legate.f 

It not only appears that it was a desire to es- 
tablish the dominion of the See of Rome, which 
first introduced the English into Ireland, but it 
was the antipathy of the Irish to the Roman usur- 
pation, which principally maintained an hostility 
between the Irish and their conquerors; from 
whence originated many acts of oppression and 
injustice on one side, and of violence and outrage on 
the other, which occasioned the Irish to be desig- 
nated Irish enemies, and, being treated as such, they 
had no inducement to acquire civilization from 

* The Warden of Galwayhas a peculiar jurisdiction. The object 
must have been to take Galway out of the hands of the Irish 
Bishop. 

f Remains of the Rev. W. Phelan, Vol. II. p. ill. 



CLERGY NOMINATED BY THE CHIEFS. 99 

their hard masters ; but, on the contrary, they 
often seduced them to the adoption of their own 
barbarous and lawless customs. 

Before the conquest of Ireland by the English, 
the clergy w T ere nominated by the chiefs ; were de- 
pendant on the chiefs ; and paid to them the ordi- 
nary duties of clansmen ; they were also amenable 
to the Brehonlaws.* After the Conquest they were 
made superior to the chiefs; and all the privileges of 
the English Church, in connexion with Rome and 
its vexatious pretensions, were extended to the 
Church of Ireland within the pale ; and, as far as 
the power of England extended, these provisions 
took effect ; but the other parts of Ireland followed 
their ancient usages ; and the Magnates refused to 
pay tithes, and levied contributions on the church- 
men as on others; consequently, as far as the 
English power extended, the clergy supported the 
conquerors and the Romish pretensions, while the 
chiefs had sufficient reason for still remaining 
Irish enemies. It was therefore the policy, both 
of the English colonists and of the Church of 
Rome, that Englishmen only should be appointed 
to ecclesiastical benefices ; and the enmity of the 
Irish seems to have been considered so thoroughly 
irreconcilable, that no attempt is made to conciliate 

* Remains of the Rev. W. Phelan, Vol. II. p. ill. 
f2 



100 STATUTE OF KILKENNY* 

them, and the Pope is so well convinced that the 
maintenance of his authority depended on the 
success of the English, that when Bruce invaded 
Ireland the Pope excommunicated him ; and the 
Archbishop of Armagh, who was then an English- 
man, followed the English army, distributing 
indulgences to those who should fall in the cause 
of Pope and King. 

At this time it was considered so necessary to 
the security of the Church, that its benefices should 
be filled by Englishmen, that the statute of Kil- 
kenny made it highly penal to present a mere 
Irishman to any ecclesiastical benefice,* or receive 
him into a monastery or other religious house,— a 
provision which could only have originated, in the 
then state of the Church, with the consent of the 
ecclesiastical authorities ; and this Parliament, 
which was assembled in the south where the Eng~ 
lishinterest was predominant, was attended by three 
archbishops and five bishops ; being probably all 
who were willing to submit to the Papal dominion 
enforced by the English sword. Further, these 
southern bishops, by this statute, forbad the use 
of the Irish dress or language, or the taking of an 
Irish name, on pain of the forfeiture of lands or 
tenements; it was made penal even to enter- 
tertain an Irish Bard, or to allow an Irish horse to 

* Phelan,Vol. II. p. 110. 



STATUTE OF KILKENNY. 101 

graze on English pasture. This could not have 
been the result of deference to superior au- 
thority ; for, on another occasion, the same eccle- 
siastics published an edict that all beneficed 
priests, who presumed to pay their allotted por- 
tion of the king's subsidy, should be deprived of 
their livings, and declared incapable of future 
preferment; and that for the like offence, the 
vassals of the Church should be excommunicated, 
and their descendants, to the third generation, 
excluded from orders; which is sufficient proof 
that the Roman Catholic churchmen considered 
the tyranical provisions of the statute of Kil- 
kenny at least as much for the interests of the 
Church as of the Government, which the Eng- 
lish had introduced ; for, if they thought other- 
wise, it is obvious they did not want either the 
courage or the power to have resisted it ; but, on 
the contrary, they fortified the civil disabilities 
and punishments of this violent enactment with 
spiritual terrors, by publishing a formal anathema 
against all transgressors of the Statute of Kilkenny, 
and of the eight prelates who were parties to this 
transaction, seven were of Papal appointment.* 

The consequences of these violent proceedings 
(which the late Lord Clare characterised as a 
declaration of war against the Irish) were, as 

* Phelan, Vol. II. p. 115. 



102 SUSPENSION OF HOSTILITY 

might be expected, rebellion on one side and 
penal enactments on the other* The jurisdic- 
tion of the government, which, at the time of the 
passing of the Statute of Kilkenny, extended to 
Cork and Galway, was gradually narrowed to 
Carlow, and at last it became a proverb, that they 
who lived west of the Barrow lived west of the 
English law. 

We have thus seen that the Papal authority 
introduced the English dominion into Ireland, 
while the English power, and the forms of Eng- 
lish law, were used to rivet the chains of Rome 
upon the Irish people. It is not said that the 
ancient Irish religion was pure, and it is not 
denied that the habits of the people were lawless 
and barbarous before the conquest by England ; 
but the Romish Church superadded its own pe- 
culiar superstitions, and the corruptions inse- 
parable from its unscriptural pretensions. The 
English did not attempt to repress turbulence, 
they only banished it to places more remote, and 
they made no effort to reclaim the offenders. 

The first remission of this state of hostility 
occurred at the time of the Reformation, and af- 
fords another proof, that the attempt to introduce 
Popery was the great barrier between the con- 
tending parties. 

When Henry VIII. renounced the spiritual 
authority of the See of Rome, he also disclaimed 



FIRST CAUSED BY THE REFORMATION, 103 

the feudal superiority of the Pope, and declared 
himself king of Ireland. This renunciation of the 
title of Lord of Ireland, which seemed to express 
a feudal dependance on the Papal See, was so 
gratifying to the Irish, that all the nobles, both 
English and Irish, arrayed themselves on the 
side of the Crown, and at the same time declared 
the king supreme head of the Church. 

Desmond, on the 16th of January 1540, exe- 
cuted a written indenture, in which he utterly 
denied, and promised to forsake, the usurped 
primacy of the Bishop of Rome, and engaged to 
resist and suppress the same. O f Connor and 
O'Dunne gave similar pledges. O'Donel, in 
addition, promised to expel all who adhered to 
the Pope. M'Mahon, O'Neil, O'Brien, De 
Burgh, and all the inferior chieftains followed the 
example.* It cannot be said, according to the 
gloss put on this transaction by Roman Catholic 
writers, that it proceeded from the satisfaction 
experienced by the Irish, because the king was 
declared Defender of the Faith ; for the Irish 
chiefs especially engage to defend and maintain 
the supremacy, by which the king renounced his 
dependance on Rome ; and not only so, but that 
they will jointly or separately annihilate the 

* Phelan, on the authority of Leland, Cox, and O'Connor. 



104 THE CHIEFTAINS ACKNOWLEDGED. 

usurped primacy and authority of the Bishop of 
Rome. The Irish act of supremacy makes any 
person, who even maintains any part of the 
authority heretofore claimed by the See of Rome, 
to incur the penalties of a premunire.* No 
wonder that this Act should be agreeable to 
Irish chiefs, who had acknowledged the king of 
England as their sovereign. His pretensions 
were in strict conformity to the original usages of 
the country, as no oaths were taken to Popes 
before the English conquest; no bulls were 
received from them ; and the prelates were always 
appointed by the chieftains. 

The good disposition shewn by the Irish Mag- 
nates was cultivated by the English government. 
The principal chiefs were raised to high rank in 
the peerage. O'Neil waited on the king, and was 
made Earl of Tyrone. Desmond consented to 
appear within a walled town, to attend Parlia- 
ment, and to pay taxes tc as liberally as Ormond 
himself." Tyrconnel resisted the attempt of 
Francis I. of France, to draw him into treasonable 
practices, and this harmony continued for eight 
years after Paul III. issued his " terrible threaten- 
ing bull" against Henry VIIL, which not only 
dethroned him, but cut him off from Christian 

* 28 Henry VII I, c. 13, , 



the king's supremacy. 105 

burial^ and doomed him to eternal curse and 
damnation,* 

A bright and happy prospect seemed at this 
time to open on the Irish nation ; but, unfortu- 
nately, the bonds of clanship, which had hitherto 
connected the chiefs and their followers, began 
to be relaxed ; the chiefs were alienated by the 
encouragement given to a change so injurious to 
their power ; the people not half civilized, and 
partially relieved from their former complete 
dependance on their chiefs, had no resource 
except in the protection of their priests, and a 
power was created, the influence of which is only 
beginning to be relaxed. 

However brief the happy opportunity, we may 
fairly say the Reformation afforded the first 
occasion to the Irish to submit to the govern- 
ment, and gave the Crown an occasion for dis- 
playing a cordial and generous disposition to 
conciliate their allegiance. We have seen that in 
the reign of Henry VII. the wild Highlandmen of 
Ireland, w T ere not well affected to the Anglo- 
Roman religion; and even in Henry VIIL'stime, 
they had no great reverence to a Roman legate. 
Their attachment was therefore to the local priest 
alone ; and England, for near four centuries, had 

* Phelan, on the authority of Father Peter Walsh, 
F 5 



106 SERVICE PERFORMED IN ENGLISH. 

been endeavouring to establish their influence. 
She had supported the Papal usurpation, which at 
length she riveted, by keeping her Irish enemies, 
as she was pleased to call them, in barbarism ; and 
having sown to the wind, she was destined to reap 
the whirlwind. The Irish were an ignorant, and, 
like all mountaineers, were naturally a super- 
stitious people; the great majority spoke only 
the Irish language. The priests performed the 
service in Latin, while the English Reformers 
addressed them in English, which was more 
disliked, and was equally unknown. Their former 
prepossessions, and their superstitious fears, how- 
ever, were in favour of the priest,* while the 
Reformers addressed themselves solely to their 
reason and conscience, in a language they did not 
understand, deluding themselves with the idea 
that they could establish the exclusive use of the 
English language by the penal provisions of an 
Act of Parliament. 

The opposition to Popery was expiring, but had 
revived, till the chiefs were offended, and would not 
have been extinguished, if the people had been 
properly instructed. A feeble but abortive 
attempt was made, in queen Elizabeth's reign, to 
give the Irish the liturgy in the Irish language . 

* The Priests often adopted their Pagan superstitions, with a 
little alteration. 



THE PRELATES CONFORMED. 10^ 

but this failed^ because the order for that purpose 
was neglected, and was probably neglected on 
account of the difficulty of procuring a regular 
clergy, who would use that language* But what- 
ever was the cause, the lamentable effect has been 
to leave a large portion of the people in the pro- 
fession of a religion different from that of the 
State, and of the principal proprietors of the soil. 
But in other respects the course taken at first for 
the reformation of religion, was not more different 
from that which was pursued in England, than 
the circumstances of the two countries made 
unavoidable; and it must be kept particularly 
in view, though there were national Synods in 
Ireland previous to the introduction of Popery — 
except the Synod of Cashel, in Henry II.'s reign — 
no Convocation seems to have been held there 
subsequent to that event ; but as a substitute it 
appears by 3rd and 18th of Edward IV., two Proctors 
were returned to Parliament by every Diocese, 
who sat as members till the 28th of Henry VIII., 
and were then only allowed to be advisers. On 
the other hand, Ireland had the advantage of 
England in one respect, that several of her pre- 
lates conformed, consequently they did not even 
leave a pretence for questioning the unbroken 
connexion of the Apostolic succession of her 
clergy. Brown, Archbishop of Dublin, in the 



108 KING EDWARD VI. 

time of Henry VIIL, embraced the Reformation, 
and no doubt sincerely, for we find that, while 
only a Provincial of the Augustine order, he 
advised the people to make application to Christ 
alone;* but "that Bishop who dwelleth at 
• Armagh," was now in favour of Rome — the Parlia- 
ment then had the power both of a Parliament 
and Convocation, and Brown got the act of 
supremacy passed with some difficulty ; but as the 
Primate Cromer, at the head of the Romish party, 
underhand opposed it, it was in a great measure 
inoperative for ecclesiastical purposes. 

The proceedings, for forwarding the Reforma- 
tion in king Edward^s time, seem to have been 
more regular. He sent over an order in 1550 for 
reading the liturgy and prayers of the Church in 
the mother tongue; "but before the proclama- 
tion for observing this order issued, the Lord- 
deputy convened an assemblage of the arch- 
bishops, bishops, and clergy, and signified to them 
the kings order, and the opinions of the bishops 
and clergy of England who adhered to the 
same.^t Primate Dowdal opposed this order; 
but not prevailing, he departed from the assembly 
with several of his suffragan bishops. Archbishop 
Brown, and those who remained, consented joy- 

* Ware. f Ibid. 



POPE PAUL IV. 109 

fully ; as did also the Bishops of Meath, Kildare, 
Leighlin, and Limerick. Brown, as might be 
expected, was deprived by queen Mary, but was 
succeeded by Curwin, who also conformed to the 
Reformation at the coming in of queen Eliza- 
beth, who was at first excommunicated by Paul 
IV. But the queen, "wondering " (as Father 
Paul expressed it) at the man's hasty disposition, 
thought it not profitable either for herself or for 
her kingdom to treat any more with him." His 
successor, more subtle, offered, if she would send 
some bishops to the Council of Trent, that the 
reformed liturgy should be sanctioned, the cup 
allowed to the laity, and the priesthood permitted 
to marry :* — concessions which shewed how easily 
theological differences could be disposed of, if the 
Papal authority was maintained. 

For eleven years Elizabeth's Roman Catholic 
subjects submitted to the measures which she 
took to shake off the Papal yoke, and to perfect 
the Reformation; the laity frequented the 
churches, multitudes of the priests adopted the 
prescribed changes, and the majority of the 
prelates retained their Sees.t This would seem 
to give a sanction to the Reformation, which no 
subsequent resistance can effectually impugn ; for 

* Phelan's Remains, Vol. IT. p. 165. 

t Phelan, on the authority of Cox and Ware. 



110 ANGLO-IRISH NOBLES. 

if the recent changes were heretical, a temporary 
conformity was a criminal hypocrisy which dis- 
credited the parties. If they were not heretical 
at the time, well informed modern Roman Catho- 
lics will hardly esteem them so, merely on account 
of the subsequent denunciation of the Pope. 
They were denounced, however, the juncture 
being favourable for such an exercise of Papal 
authority. 

The Anglo-Irish nobles, within the pale, had 
become discontented, because their monopoly of 
favour had been infringed by the reconciliation 
between the Crown and the lords of Irish blood ; 
and in a memorial to Edward VI. they complain 
of its being intended to call a Parliament, and 
" that the matters therein propounded were not 
made known to us,"* In addition, they were no 
doubt cordially attached to the Roman Catholic 
religion, with which their fortunes had always 
been identified. The chiefs of Irish blood, on the 
contrary, had no attachment to the court or to 
the religion of Rome. We have seen that in 
the reign of Henry VIII. they were ready not 
only to admit the king's supremacy, but to resist 
any pretension whatever to authority or supre- 
macy on the part of the Bishop of Rome, and 

* Phelan, p. 170. 



DESMOND AND O c NEIL. Ill 

even when they had entered into rebellion, in 
concert with the Roman Catholics, they shewed 
no reverence to that Church. 

A Roman Catholic writer says, " When Des- 
mond took possession of Youghal, even the 
churches, and whatsoever was sacred, were polluted 
and defiled by the soldiers ;" and the same author 
informs us that "the soldiers of Hugh O'Neil 
robbed and spoiled the monasteries of Kinna- 
beogue and Kilcrea, and profaned other 
churches :"* and so great was the disgust expe- 
rienced by their Spanish allies, that Lord Mount- 
joy informs us that a Spanish officer avowed his 
conviction "that Christ did not die for the 

Irish."t 

The Irish chiefs were willing, and even desirous, 
that the crown should have a supremacy in eccle- 
siastical matters, of which they had in a manner 
possessed themselves, in their own petty and 
subordinate jurisdictions ; and accordingly 
they repeated, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, 
the oath which they had taken in the reign of 
Henry VIII., which secured the supremacy of the 
Crown. But they would not endure that their 
own sovereignties should be abridged. They 

* Theatre of Catholic and Protestant religion, quoted by 
Phelan. f Phelan, p. 249. 



112 THE IRISH NOBLES. 

could not abandon their old usages, and submit to 
equal laws, as between them and their vassals, 
which it was queen Elizabeth's intention to 
establish ; for which purpose she sent instructions 
to her Irish government, from time to time, to 
break down the power of the nobles : a policy 
which was continued by James I., and with more 
effect after the failure of Tyrone's rebellion. 

"The Irish," (says Sir John Davis) "were 
received into his Majesty's protection ; and our 
visitation of the shires, however distasteful to the 
Irish Lords, was sweet and most welcome to the 
common people." But by these proceedings the 
whole of the Irish aristocracy were rendered 
discontented. 

Sir George Crewe, in his letter to Secretary 
Cecil, says : " The English " (that is the Irish 
English) " desire to recover again the supreme 
government, in bearing her Majesty's sword, 
by one of themselves;" — " but the Irish rebels 
are at a higher mark:" ... "to recover 
their former greatness, they kick at the 
government, and enter into rebellion. These 
several ambitious swellings in the hearts 
of the English and Irish rebels, are the grounds 
of the continual rebellions, and they mask their 
ambition with religion, making the same their 



THE IRISH PEASANTRY. 113 

stalking horse to allure the vulgar to crown their 
fortunes/** 

We can have little doubt this is a true state 
of the case. The Pope availed himself of these 
discontents, and the Irish chiefs, who were proba- 
bly indifferent as to what religion prevailed, 
embraced the cause of the Romish Church, to 
obtain the aid of the Spaniards, and the counte- 
nance, not to say the influence, which the court 
of Rome could then confer by its spiritual exhor- 
tations, and the charm of its consecrated plumes. 

The Irish peasantry were in a state of great 
barbarism and gross ignorance ; they are de- 
scribed as having been long without spiritual in- 
struction, and the contest between the ancient 
religion, and that of Rome, seemed to refer, in 
some points, to matters with which they had little 
concern, and to others more essential, which 
they could not then understand. They had 
ceased to hear of St. John or the Church of 
Ephesus ; but they probably heard often of Rome 
and St. Peter. Religion, under human influence, 
has a tendency to decay, when discussion has 
ceased to remind men of the points on which they 
differed, and when a reference to the only standard 
of truth is difficult, if not impracticable. It is pro- 
bable, therefore, that the superstitious feelings of 

* Quoted by Phelan, p. 175 — 6, 



114 THE IRISH CHIEFTAINS. 

the Irish peasants (which stood in the place of 
religion) were easily transferred to the Romish 
religion ; when, therefore, their chiefs concurred 
with their priests in resigning them to the Papal 
dominion ; and when, with their warm feelings, 
they had once engaged and suffered in the cause 
of that Church, it is no wonder that it is now so 
difficult to emancipate them : they do not know the 
ills to which it first introduced them, and they 
will not believe it is the principal cause of those 
which they still endure. 

If it had been possible for queen Elizabeth to 
have conciliated the allegiance of the Irish chief- 
tains, and to have gradually abridged their ob- 
noxious privileges, Ireland might not now present 
all those anomalies which are so embarrassing to 
British statesmen of all parties. The failure of 
these attempts at reformation may be another in- 
stance, among the many which history presents, 
of the danger of introducing even beneficial 
changes among a people not capable of appre- 
ciating or using them, and of applying the insti- 
tutions of one country to another under quite dif- 
ferent circumstances. 

The English government desired to emancipate 
the Irish peasant from the iron rule of his chief, and 
to extend to him the blessings of equal privileges 
under English laws ; but the effect was to transfer 



115 

his allegiance to the priests who led him to 
rebellion. 

John O'NeiPs rebellion followed. The parties 
were the priests, the native Irish., and Anglo-Irish 
aristocracy ; the latter deprecating the subver- 
sion of the English government, w T ith which their 
own fortunes were united, but wishing just so 
much calamity as would throw the government 
back into their own hands. 

The Irish chief is said to have had besotted 
habits, but as possessing address, subtlety, enter- 
prise, and perseverance, to a degree scarcely ever 
found in one of that character. He had baffled the 
English governor, and "he had overreached the 
law officers of the Crown.* However, in burning 
the cathedral of Armagh, his zeal overstepped 
his discretion : he was excommunicated by the 
titular Primate, and the rebellion was subdued. 
Pope Gregory XIII. thought it prudent to explain 
the bull of his predecessor, Pius, which freed the 
people from their allegiance, and required " that 
they be not so bold as to obey the heretical 
queen," — "and whosoever did otherwise was bound 
with the sentence of anathema." The explana- 
tion declared that this should be understood, as 
that the same should always bind the queen of 

* Phelan, p. 178. 



116 THE POPE'S BULL. 

heretics ; but that it should by no means bind the 
Catholics, as matters then stood or were ; only 
thereafter it should bind them, when the public 
execution of that bull should be had or made ;" 
that is to say, it was declared to be unlawful to 
obey an heretical excommunicated queen ; but it 
was only to be unlawful when that interpretation 
should be convenient, and the execution become 
practicable. The explanation seems to be in the 
same spirit with that which at present interprets 
the oath now taken by Roman Catholic Members 
of both Houses of Parliament. 

Mr. Butler, a Roman Catholic writer, thought 
the explanatory bull scarcely less objectionable 
than the edict which it professes to mitigate,* 

Such was the course of events in the reign of 
queen Elizabeth. The Reformation was adopted 
by the Irish prelates, while the laity conformed to 
the ritual prescribed by the Church ; but the 
sword of the discontented nobles was resorted to, 
to give effect to the spiritual thunders of the 
Vatican. It failed of its immediate effect ; but it 
served to alienate the Irish people from the Re- 
formed Church, and from the government of 
England, and to continue civil discord for two 
centuries at least. 

* Phelan, p. 182. 



THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 117 

The See of Armagh was vacant from 1558, till 
Adam Loftus was appointed in 1562 ; and in all 
probability but very little was then done towards 
the reformation of the Church ; as we find that in 
1607 Usher had digested the ancient canons of 
the Church, but had not published them. A Con- 
vocation was held subsequently, wherein the 
Articles of the Church were composed and pub- 
lished. As the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church 
of England were afterwards adopted by an Irish 
Convocation, and have generally been considered 
as the standard of doctrine in both Churches, 
these Irish Articles are only mentioned to shew, 
that whatever was done, in the way of setting 
forth the doctrine, was executed by the authority 
of the clergy duly assembled in Convocation. 

The work of Reformation in Ireland seems to 
have been imperfectly accomplished, owing to the 
rude state of her population, their ignorance, and 
the divisions and civil dissensions among the 
nobles ; but chiefly because the people were not 
addressed, as the English were, in the vulgar 
tongue. But, however faults of omission may 
have been committed by the government and the 
higher clergy, there seems to have been no viola- 
tion of property, and no unauthorised meddling 
with the doctrines of the Church. A number of 
the bishops voluntarily conformed ; the rest ab- 
sented themselves, when opposition appeared to 



118 ATtCHISHOP DOWDAL, 

be unavailing. So careful were those in autho- 
rity not to violate any positive rights, that Arch- 
bishop Dowdal, who dissented at the meeting 
of the clergy, was only deprived of his title of 
Primate (which his own Church disputed), not of 
his bishopric till he went into voluntary banish- 
ment.* 

The case of the Irish Church is simply this : 
the Romish religion was not the religion of 
the ancient Irish, but was established, in the 
first instance, by the authority of the English 
arms. The clergy were reconciled to the change 
by a desire to be delivered from the despotism of 
their chiefs, and were allured by the power and 
precedence awarded to the clergy, and especially 
to the superior ecclesiastics. The gift of the Palls 
favoured these pretensions, while the people were 
too barbarous and ignorant to judge for them- 
selves ; and being removed from all other Chris- 
tian instruction, could only give up themselves to 
be governed by their chiefs ; and, when their 
authority was subverted, to be influenced by the 
priests. 

The Roman Catholic religion, therefore, origi- 
natedin conquest, and was maintained by ambition. 
The Protestant religion on the contrary, we have 
reason to believe, was embraced by Archbishop 
Brown, and probably by Curwin and the other 

* Ware. 



IRISH TITHES. 119 

bishops, from conviction. The Roman Catholics, 
therefore, have no claim from prescription. 

The Irish, indeed, have claims on England ; for 
they have a right to demand that she should 
emancipate them from those errors in which the 
English involved them. Neither has the Church 
of Rome any claim to the Church property in 
Ireland ; for it appears the Irish did not derive 
Christianity from thence. We cannot find that 
tithes made a part of the property of the ancient 
Irish Church ; for the suffragan bishops, as well as 
the rectors, as also the Herenach, were supported, 
along with their families, by an allotment of 
of lands, called Termon lands.* And an Act of 
Parliament, passed in the reign of Henry VIII. , 
to enforce the payment of tithes, gives ground for 
supposing that, previous to the Reformation, 
tithes were not paid beyond the precincts of the 
pale. But as much the greater portion of the 
lands, in the other parts of Ireland, were forfeited, 
and the subsequent grants were made subject to 
tithes, the title of the clergy to their tenth portion 
can only be impeached by a claim from the 
original proprietors, which equally invalidates the 
titles of by far the largest proportion of estates 
in Ireland. 

The conquest of Ireland by the English origi- 

* Sir James Ware, Antiquities, p. 233. 



120 RELAXATION OF SEVERITY. 

nated in that lust of power which, since what we 
must consider its apostacy, has always character- 
ized the Church of Rome ; and the desire on the 
part of the English monarchs to maintain that 
authority, from which their own title originated, 
against the ancient habits of the people, and the 
privileges of their chiefs, gave occasion for much 
of the oppression, and those invidious distinc- 
tions which characterized the unhappy period 
during which the Romish Church and the English 
government ruled a small portion of Ireland, and 
carried on war against the remainder. 

It is not a little singular, that the first relaxation 
of those severe enactments, which oppressed the 
Irish people and disgraced the Irish Statute Book, 
was made as soon as the Reformation was com- 
pleted. In the third year of his reign, James I. 
issued a proclamation, declaring " that he received 
all the natives of Ireland into his protection ;" and 
the common law of England became established 
in Ireland .* The Statute of the 11th, 12th, and 
13th James I. cap. v.,t after recognizing that 
the natives of Ireland were for the most part in 
continual hostility with the English, and that in 
divers statutes they were called Irish enemies, 
being held in contempt, then goes on to repeal that 

* Sir James Ware, Vol. II. p. 88» 
f Irish Statutes, Vol. I. 



SPIRIT OF THE REFORMATION. 121 

which enacted that none should take merchandize 
to be sold among the Irish. Also that which 
enacted " that any person might take any Irishman 
found within the English border, and make of 
them as the king's enemies/' Also that prevent- 
ing any person fostering or marrying with the 
Irish. Now for the first time Ulster, with 
parts of Leinster and Connaught, saw lawyers 
taking their circuits of assize, and dispensing the 
comforts of English jurisprudence. Can any 
person read the provisions of the statutes which 
were repealed by this enactment, and not express 
astonishment at the spirit which sanctioned those 
provisions; and can we not recognise in their 
repeal a more intimate acquaintance with the 
Scriptures, from which is derived that religion 
which teaches us to be at peace with all men, and 
an approach to that charity which never faileth. 

The Roman Catholic Irish are too apt to con- 
found the wrongs which they suffered from Eng- 
land in a state of Popish ignorance with that 
blessed Reformation which first dictated a better 
policy arising from a more Christian spirit that 
commenced at the very dawn of the Reformation, 
and which has actuated this country ever since, 
if not without interruption, with only such as 
might be expected from the provocations which 

G 



122 REBELLION OF 1641. 

unhappily too often originated with the Irish 
themselves. 

The great rebellion, and the massacre of the 
Protestants in 1641, took place little more than 
thirty years after a Protestant Parliament, and a 
Protestant king had given their sanction to the 
beneficent provisions of this enactment; and here 
again it was the work of that foreign ecclessiastical 
power which would retain its authority by the 
same unhallowed means by which it had been 
acquired, and who took advantage of the unhappy 
circumstances in which Ireland w T as placed ; for, 
as Mr, Phelan remarks, " it was beyond the reach 
of a proclamation to abolish the memory of old 
grievances ; to make an Irish landlord contented 
with equal laws and a reasonable rent; and to 
appease the hungry and contentious expectancies 
which, by the usages of Tanistry and Gavelkind, 
were collected round an Irish property " 

When we consider how remote is the origin of 
those ancient laws and institutions, to which 
there is reason to attribute the peculiar vices of 
the Irish character, we have occasion to wonder — 
not that in many respects they should shew a 
defective morality; but it excites our surprise 
that they should have been even partially re- 
claimed. For while their ancient laws were such 



MILESIAN IRISH. 123 

as to deprave the national character, the conduct 
of their conquerors, up to the period of the Re- 
formation, was such as to maintain the habits 
which their early institutions had engendered. 

The Irish have ever been remarkable for a dis- 
regard of human life, and a familiarity with the 
crime of homicide. Peter Walsh, a Franciscan 
friar, reports, in his prospect of Ireland under the 
Milesian kings : " Certainly, if not among can- 
nibals, never has any other nation upon earth 
exceeded the Milesian race (inhabiting Ireland) 
in the most unnatural, bloody, everlasting, de- 
structive feuds that have been heard, or can well 
be imagined,'* He says again : " The fury extended 
even to many ages of Christianity ; or rather, 
indeed, in a very great measure to the whole 
extent or duration of their being a free people/* 
And further : " Not even the greatest holiness of 
some of their very greatest and most justly cele- 
brated saints, has been exempt from the fatality 
of this genius of putting their controversies to 
the bloody decision of battles/* But no wonder 
that human life should be estimated so low, when, 
by the Brehon law, murders, rapes, and theft 
were punished only by a fine called Erick ; — at so 
cheap a rate was human life estimated by the 
Irish lawgivers.* The Irish are, also, much 

* Mr. Moore says, murder and rape were made capital offences 
G 2 



124 BREHON LAWS. 

wanting in reverence for the authority of govern- 
ment, which may have arisen from the uncer- 
tainty w r hich attended the right of succession 
under the law of Tanistry, and the possibility 
that the Dynast might be deposed. Mr. Moore 
says, the Dynasts themselves being, from their 
position, both subjects and rulers, were by turns 
tyrants and slaves. 

The successor of the Dynast or Chief was 
elected by the people, who generally chose the 
most powerful in followers and dependants, who 
was called the Tanist. The Tanist, and every 
kinsman of the Dynast, had lands allowed them ; 
but they were removeable at the pleasure of the 
Dynasts. Sir James Ware remarks on this : 
" Where men have no fixed estates in their lands, 
which their issue or next relatives in blood may 
inherit, they are ignorant % for whom they labour, 
and are therefore negligent in turning them to the 
best advantage." And again, " when they knew 
that their wives were not endowable, nor their 
issue inheritable, they committed crimes with the 
greater audacity." 

The Irish have always shewn a great disregard 

before the coming in of the English. If so, they must have 
relapsed into their former barbarous customs afterwards ; for the 
Brehonlavvs were in force among the Irish in the time of Spenser 
and Sir John Davis. 



i 



LAW OF GAVELKIND. 125 

to the rights of property, their own property was 
insecure, as the lowest Dynast or Chief was sup- 
ported principally by some tributary exaction, 
called coshering; by which he quartered himself 
on the people against their consent, and without 
payment; and to this all lands, except those of 
the Church, were liable;* and the custom of the 
Irish, if possible, to divide their land among their 
children, and the effort w T hich every man in 
Ireland makes to rise above his station, arises 
from the Irish law of Gavelkind, by which the 
land of the father was. at his death divided 
among all the sons illegitimate as well as legiti- 
mate. From this custom, Sir James Ware says, 
" every one of the sons, though labouring under 
the most shameful poverty, looked upon himself 
as a gentleman, and disdained to exercise hus- 
bandry, merchandise, or any other mechanical 
art. Yet these poor gentlemen were so affected 
to their small portions of land, that they rather 
chose to live at home, by rapine, extortion, 
oppression, and coshering, than to seek more 
ample fortunes abroad." — From thence the Septs 
increased. 

It is curious with what distinctness we are able 
to trace the root of the habits of the Irish of the 

* Sir James Ware, 



126 ORIGIN OF FACTIONS. 

present day, to customs and laws of such ancient 
date, and which have so long ceased to have any 
authority ; we not only now find them indifferent 
to the shedding of blood, and still, if possible, 
dividing their land, and clinging to the soil which 
will not afford them a maintenance ; but we even 
see the origin of that love which the Irish women 
bear to their foster children, in the custom of 
fostering, which, though it has now left its 
traces in an amiable exercise of human affection, 
was the fountain, our antiquarian informs us, 
of many evils, owing to the strange combinations 
and confederacies of factions in things lawful or 
unlawful, to which it gave rise ; and so, at the 
present day, when once the Irish have adopted a 
faction, they adhere to it with a strange pertina- 
city, and without any better reason than having 
once identified themselves with the cause.* 

We find also that the Irish have great admira- 
tion for daring and lawless characters, which has 
also its origin in their ancient customs ; for 
Spenser, speaking of the Irish bards, says, 
" Whomsoever they find to be most licentious of 
life, most bold and lawless in his daring, most 



* Mr. Moore says, " faction pervaded all ranks, from the hovel 
to the supreme throne," Again, " commotion and bloodshed 
were in those times the ordinary course of public affairs." 



INJUSTICE TO IRELAND. 127 

dangerous and desperate in all parts of disobe- 
dience and rebellious dispositions, him they glo- 
rify in their rhythms, him they praise to the people, 
and to young men make an example to follow." 
And, if such was the state of things under their 
Milesian kings and numerous dynasts, it was not 
much improved by the English conquest. 

In addition to their internal dissensions, they 
were (as their designation of Irish enemies shews) 
at perpetual war with the English, whose system 
of government was not directed to conciliate them, 
though they did not think it worth while, till a 
late period, to subdue them ; but while the 
English claimed a nominal sovereignty, they 
denied them the protection which is due in 
return for allegiance ; on the contrary, we find 
a law allowing Irishmen, found as Espials among 
the English, to be made of as if the king's 
enemies. 

It is not necessary to go through the various 
degrading and harassing enactments which dis- 
graced the statute book. One, by prohibiting 
commercial intercourse, excluded the Irish from 
such a connexion with their masters as might 
conciliate their regard, and would enable them to 
derive some benefit from their allegiance. But, 
in fact, an intercourse with the Irish was feared, 
as tending more to deteriorate the English colo- 
nists, than to improve the aboriginal inhabitants ; 



128 BENEFICENT STATUTES. 

and there was no desire to retain their allegiance ; 
their exclusion from the English pale, and their 
gradual extinction, appearing to be the objects 
in view, till these obnoxious provisions were 
repealed by king James, when, as the first fruits 
of the Reformation, in the words of that beneficent 
statute, "All the inhabitants of this kingdom, 
without difference and distinction, are taken into 
his majesty's gracipus protection, and do now live 
under one law as dutiful subjects of our Lord and 
monarch/"* Nor did the beneficial influence of 
that charity which sufFereth long, and is kind, 
stop here ; for, by the 10th and 11th of Charles 
L, it is provided, as the preamble says, "for abo- 
lition of destruction and difference between his 
majesty's said dutiful subjects of the said realm of 
Ireland, and for the perpetual settling of peace 
and tranquillity among them," that various 
statutes then in force, which made invidious dis- 
tinctions between the English and Irish, should 
be repealed. 

But, unfortunately, the beneficent intentions of 
the monarch and legislature were defeated; for 
nine years after the passing this statute, the per- 
petual peace, which it was intended to promote, 
was interrupted by the rebellion and massacre of 
the Protestants in the year 1641. 

* Irish Statutes, James I. 



REBELLION. 129 

We cannot be surprised if, after this bloody 
catastrophe, and the temper shewn by the Roman 
Catholic Parliament, assembled by King James 
II., that the Protestant government of Ireland 
should so far distrust their Roman Catholic sub- 
jects, as to enact what are called the penal laws, 
which, however, were not confined to Ireland, 
and were not more severe upon the Irish than 
the English. There was also, we must confess, a 
great deal of commercial jealousy shewn by Eng- 
land, which much retarded the improvement of 
both nations, and protracted the reign of bar- 
barism among the Irish. 

There was also much religious indifference 
among the Protestants of Ireland, from which 
their English brethren were not exempt. But 
still the Word of God was read weekly in their 
churches, and the Gospel, even then, often 
preached fully in the pulpits of the Church, while 
a Scriptural 'liturgy was read from the desk ; — 
alas ! not for the benefit of the mere Irish, but, at 
least, for all those who understood the English 
tongue. Compare, however, this state of things 
with what we are told was the state of the Church 
in 1515. just before the Reformation. " There is 
no archbishop, bishop, abbot, ne parson, ne 
vicar, ne any other person of the Church, high 
or low, greater or smaller, Englishe or Iryshe, 

G 5 



130 TIME OF HENRY VIII. 

that useth to preach the Worde of God, saving 
the poor Fryers, beggars/' " Also the Churche 
of thys lande use not to lerne any other scyence 
but the law of canon "* Can we be surprised 
that the same author should say, " what comyn 
folke, in all this world, is so pooer (poor), so 
feeble, so well besyn in toon and fylde, so bestyall, 
so greatly oppressed and trodden under foot, as 
the common folke of Ireland." 

However the Protestant clergy may, for a time, 
have come short of their duties, — however religion 
may have decayed there, as it did also at the same 
period in England, — the dereliction of duty was 
not to be compared with that charged against the 
Roman Catholic Church by one of her own 
members. 

We have now seen, by a very hasty review, 
what was the state of Ireland under her Milesian 
kings, " when commotion and bloodshed " were 
the ordinary course of public affairs/'f We have 
seen Ireland, under Roman Catholic England, 
" oppressed and trodden under foote," when she 
was characterised by iC continuale warre, rite of 
hate and envye," as a land in which " there never 

* State Papers, Henry VIII., quoted in Christian Examiner for 
June 1835. 

f Moore. 



MILESIAN CUSTOMS. 131 

was more lybertie in vyceis, and less lybertie in 
virtue."* We have seen her, after the Reforma- 
tion, when all the inhabitants of this kingdom 
were "taken under his majesty's protection/' and 
all distinctions and differences were abolished; 
but we have also seen that, by the old Milesian 
customs, habits were created which have not 
yet been eradicated ; and by the iron rule of the 
English conquest Popery was riveted so effec- 
tually as to endanger that connexion between the 
two countries by which it was introduced. 

But the people of Ireland having become prone 
to homicide by the indulgence of the Brehon 
laws, and habituated to it by the cruel policy of 
their Anglo-Roman conquerors, this evil disposi- 
tion is still directed to advance their own objects 
by those who possess an influence over the more 
ignorant part of the population, so as to shew the 
truth of an old proverb, " the pryde of France, the 
treason of Ingland, and the warre of Ireland, shall 
never have ende."t 

The treason of England has now been dormant 
for many generations under the influence of a 
strict administration of justice. The people are 
attached to the constitution from which they 
derive security for capital, and its natural conse- 

* State Papers, Henry VIII. t Ibid. 



132 PROSPECTS OF IRELAND. 

quence, commercial and agricultural prosperity; 
and we trust these advantages will be secured by 
that which adds the blessing of God, a pure and 
Scriptural religion ; and may not the wars of Ire- 
land cease under the same influence ? But habits 
have been created which, originating in such 
causes, are not to be easily changed ; nor can a 
cure be effected, of so complete a moral derange- 
ment, by such remedies as have been proposed 
in modern times. 

It is not by paying the Roman Catholic 
priests, that we are to create a regard for human 
life ; it is not by the mere learning to read and 
write that we are to give a respect for the rights 
of property. It is not by giving increased civil 
privileges to those who are at present more ready 
to use those they possess blindly at the dictation 
of some favourite declaimer, than from a desire to 
benefit their country. It is not by severity 
towards Protestants, as a proof of impartiality 
towards Roman Catholics ! It is not by such 
methods as these that the Irish character is to be 
improved; and a " liberty for virtue*' given;" and 
the if liberty for vice " restrained. No, it must 
be by a strict administration of justice, aided by a 
vigilant police. The recurrence of the evil habit 
must be prevented, in the first instance, which 
will restrain the commission of the overt act. 



PROSPECTS OF IRELAND. 133 

Evil must not be permitted even that good may 
come; the Irish must not be allowed to resist the 
payment of lawful demands, even by those who 
may think it expedient to change the application 
of the property in question. Justice must be 
administered with a strict impartiality ; but it 
must always be kept in view, that the exercise of 
impartiality does not require that the religion of 
the party should be encouraged, but merely that it 
should be protected; however, it does require that 
that religion should be maintained, which was 
guaranteed by repeated Acts of Parliament, 
under the faith of which settlements were made, 
properties purchased, and essential rights sur- 
rendered. 

If order can be preserved in Ireland by so 
reasonable a course of proceeding, much may 
afterwards be effected by other means ; by giving 
protection to capital ; by promoting commercial 
and agricultural prosperity ; by good education, 
and especially by giving a knowledge of those 
Scriptures by which alone we are led not merely 
to what constitutes temporal happiness, but to 
those blessings which will never end ; by which 
alone, under the blessing of God, that character 
is formed which peculiarly fits an individual con- 
scientiously to perform all the relative duties of 



134 GENTRY AND PEASANTRY. 

life, and which, consequently, if general must con- 
stitute the happiness of a nation. 

There is no time now, to go into all the minute 
questions which suggest themselves in consider- 
ing the state of Ireland. Many other evils, to 
which she is subject, deserve to be reviewed ; and, 
if these could be removed, it would almost super- 
sede those which arise out of the difference of 
religion. 

It is desirable that the wide interval between 
the gentry and peasantry should be filled by a gra- 
dation such as exists in most parts of England, 
where it is difficult to say where one grade be- 
gins, and another ends ; though the extremes, and 
even many intermediate links, are separated by 
a considerable interval. If a similar state of 
society could take place in Ireland, the interests 
of the whole community would be so interwoven, 
that servile wars would be less frequent. It is 
also desirable that capital should be so largely in- 
vested in land, that the competition for farms might 
be less extensive ; and that the rent should be re- 
gulated, not only by the demand, but by the 
possibility of a beneficial investment. By 
these means, those who have an interest in pre- 
serving order, might be intermixed with those 
men by whom it is likely to be violated ; and a 
community of interest would be given to the 



WHAT IS PROTESTANT ASCENDANCY. 135 

owners and occupiers of land, by both parties 
having something to lose ; and, in consequence, 
political agitation on subjects even the most in- 
teresting would have comparatively little effect, 
because it would threaten the prosperity of so 
manv individuals in various classes. 

The Protestants of Ireland are accused ot 
struggling to regain what was called " Protestant 
ascendancy/' Though this was, at one time, a 
popular toast in Ireland, few understood it so as 
to give the expression any definite meaning. At 
one time it may have meant the maintenance of 
the whole penal code ; and, in that sense, no en- 
lightened P rotestant of the present day would 
desire its re-establishment, It may have meant 
the exclusion of Roman Catholics from Parlia- 
ment ; and the Protestants now know too well that 
is impracticable. But it may mean, and probably, 
in Mr. OConnelPs view, it does mean, the main- 
tenance of the Protestant Church, guaranteed as it 
was at the Union. In this sense, the Protestants 
have a right to require the maintenance of Pro- 
testant ascendancy, and so far as it has been vio- 
lated by a failure on the part of the late Govern- 
ment, to secure their property they have a right to 
struggle to prevent its recurrence. It may mean 
also that the government should be essentially 
Protestant, not that Roman Catholics should be 



136 IRISH TITHES. 

systematically excluded from all places of trust 
to which they may be qualified ; but that the go- 
vernment should be so constructed as to secure 
Protestant proprietors in the enjoyment of their 
properties, and the Protestant Church in the 
possession of its rights. Now even if these objects 
were not as just and reasonable as they appear to 
be, let us see how the government can be carried 
on upon any other principle. 

If the member for Cork, and those who act with 
him, desire the annihilation of that essential part 
of the property of the Church of England and 
Ireland, which consists of Irish Tithes, without a 
fair and full substitute ; will they not use any 
power and influence which they may possess to 
effect that object ; and still more, was not an in- 
tention evinced to transfer some part of that pro- 
perty, or its equivalent, to the ministers of the 
Roman Catholic Church ? Could the govern- 
ment gratify them in this, and keep the good will 
and sincere co-operation of the Protestant gentry 
and Protestant people ? 

The attempt has already been tried to gain the 
good will of the Roman Catholics, by a desire to 
shew impartiality to a degree which has appeared 
to the Protestants, especially to the clergy, as a 
partiality highly injurious to them, and the effort 
seems to have been utterly unavailing ; nay, it is 



REPEAL OF THE UNION. 137 

avowed that nothing short of a dissolution of the 
Union will avail to conciliate those who have in 
view the measure which the late government said 
was equivalent to the dismemberment of the 
Empire. 

It is true that a hope is held out that instal- 
ments will be accepted ; but why ? because they 
advance the great object which is still in view and 
openly avowed. Was it not, then, hopeless to 
govern Ireland by the aid of those men who still 
entertain such designs ? if they do, they who make 
the attempt must have hoped either to make the 
supporters of the repeal of the Union their un- 
conscious instruments (and the sagacity which 
these persons have shewn repudiates the idea), 
or they must have hoped to win them to their 
purpose ; and what could they hold out to them 
consistent with the good faith which is due to 
the Protestant Church and Protestant people^ 
which would afford them an adequate object in 
giving the government their support ; and is there 
not something in the personal position of some 
of the supporters of repeal, as it is called, which 
almost makes it impossible for them to close with 
any objects of personal ambition; they may give 
partial support to obtain apparently slight con- 
cessions ; but in such a war of manoeuvering, a 
government must always lose ; it is on the defen- 



138 DIFFICULTIES IN 

sive ; therefore by every change something is 
gained by its adversary ; time, too, is everything 
to those who desire an important change; the 
most monstrous propositions appear less formida- 
ble when we are familiar with them; and the 
opponent of existing institutions always grows 
into power and importance ; especially when he 
appears to be successful* 

Among the circumstances which make Ireland 
one of the most difficult countries in the world 
to deal with, we must particularly keep in view 
the variety, as well as the conflicting nature, of the 
motives which influence her population. We 
have there the principle of democracy not less 
active than in other countries, and aided by the 
spirit of enterprise which has always distinguished 
the natives of that country. We have the spirit 
of hostility to Protestants which grew out of the 
original hostility to England ; both these aggra- 
vated by a recollection of the property which has 
passed from the ancestors of the Irish to those who 
have descended from the English and Protestant 
settlers. These motives make them ready instru- 
ments to the priests who desire to re-establish the 
Romish hierarchy ; and this gives occasion to an 
opinion, that if you could satisfy the priests by 
giving them a provision, which would be a partial 
establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, 



GOVERNING IRELAND. 139 

you would also quench the turbulent spirits who 
are now their instruments. We will leave out 
of consideration, in this place, the greatest diffi- 
culty, whether any consistent Protestant can con- 
sent that the State should contribute to support 
the Roman Catholic Church ; and we will further 
postpone another very important question, whe- 
ther the government would be justified in giving 
authority to those, whose conduct is such as that 
attributed to the Roman Catholic priests, by one 
of themselves ; and we will only inquire as to the 
expediency of such a course. In the first place, 
what security will you have that the priest, even 
when a permanent provision has been made for 
him, will not still act on the superstitious fears of 
the people, as described by Mr. Croly, to extract 
as much more as he can from them ; and, in order 
to do so, he must favour, and not control, their 
unruly dispositions. In this way you will place 
in lawful authority, and provide with means suffi- 
cient to give them much power, men who are in 
no way under the authority of the government of 
the country. 

Protestant clergymen are under the influence 
of the government, owing to the Church patronage 
of which the Crown is possessed, and they are 
responsible for their conduct to the ordinary 
tribunals of the country ; but it is the very es- 
ence of the Roman Catholic religion, that their 



140 OBJECTIONS TO PAYING 

ecclesiastics are only responsible to ecclesiastical 
authority ; a Roman Catholic priest, if established, 
may act in the most criminal manner; his 
superiors may decide in his favour, and if he is to 
be removed, the appeal, as a last resort, is to be 
to Rome. Is the Crown of England once more to 
sue at Rome for justice against one of its own 
subjects ? Can harmony be promoted by sepa- 
rating, as widely as possible, the civil and eccle- 
siastical authorities ? and would any wise man 
perpetuate such a system as that which Mr. 
Croly represents to prevail in the Roman Catholic 
Church of Ireland ? 

It may be said, that to make a provision for the 
Roman Catholic clergy is the way to remove some 
of the evils which Mr. Croly describes, and they 
are stated by him for that purpose ; but it would 
be a desperate experiment: if it failed, the country 
would be involved in an act which a large part of 
the community consider highly reprehensible in 
a religious point of view ; and if it did accomplish 
its professed object, it would aggravate all the 
existing evils by giving permanence to the system, 
and authority and influence to those with whom 
it originates ; and be assured * it is much more 

* A Work was published a few years ago, written by Mr. Corn- 
wall Lewis, which advocates the payment of the Roman Catholic 
priests, and in which opinions are expressed which will at least 



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS. 141 

than doubtful whether you would satisfy the 
priests. They consider Protestantism a usurpation, 
and would never be satisfied with less than the 

lead to the adoption of the voluntary principle. Mr. Lewis is of 
opinion, that to object to the encouragement, by the Legislature, 
of religious teachers, because the objector conscientiously believes 
their tenets are unscriptural and dangerous, will lead to the 
adoption of the same principles which caused the persecutions of 
the Duke of Alva, and which lighted the fires of the Inquisition. 
But he forgets that there may be a medium between abstaining 
from supporting a religion which we think to be wrong, and per- 
secuting the followers of a religion from which we differ ; we 
may refuse to spread the heresy without determining to murder 
the heretics,, and so prevent even the possibility of Reformation. 
Mr. Lewis speaks of religious opinions as if they were identical 
with political parties ; consequently he considers the one as having 
no higher obligation than the other, Now we are persuaded he 
will see, on reflection, that religious tenets must have a greater 
influence than any other opinions; but he will also find that any 
statesman or legislator will greatly miscalculate who does not expect 
men's religious opinions to have, in many instances, a supreme in- 
fluence on their conduct. Mr. Lewis speaks of the danger, that 
men will consider themselves rather as Baptists and Roman Catho- 
lics than as Englishmen or Frenchmen, and that they will prefer 
the one course to the other. Now, if the question is only between 
Infant and Adult Baptism, they may not probably find their re- 
ligious and civil obligations at variance. But Mr. Lewis may 
rest assured, that if any statesman was to place an undoubted 
religious obligation, clearly set out in Scripture, in an unhappy 
opposition to the duties of the citizen, he must expect to find 
many men who will prefer religious obligation to the civil, and, 
in so doing, they would only fulfil the injunction to obey God 
rather than men. It is true that men may believe they are serv- 
ing God, when they are only gratifying their own passions ; but in 
this, as in other instances, their persons must be made responsible 
for the obliquity of their understandings. Mr. Lewis's doctrine 



142 THE FRIARS. 

restitution of all which they conceive belongs to 
them ; and, indeed, the See of Rome would sacri- 
fice all its pretensions, if it could be satisfied with 
less. But if you did conciliate the secular priests, 
the friars would occupy their place in the affections 
of the people, and also in the direction of their 
turbulent spirits ; for the priests find, but do not 
create, though they use the disposition to dis- 
turbance which arises from other causes above 
stated. 

Even if a stipendiary provision were made for 

seems to be, that religion, which should influence a man sincerely 
in his closet, and supremely in the discharge of all his private obli- 
gations and relative duties, is to exercise no control over him in the 
performance of his public duties. But it seems difficult to conceive 
how we can consult Scripture as a rule of life in relation to our 
private concerns, and cast off all reference to its authority, when 
we have to act in a public capacity ; but if not, how can it be said 
that "the State is no judge of creeds, and views religion solely 
in their temporal character."* A community is, as he says, no 
really existent person; but it is a number of persons, each of 
which individually must be influenced in his separate actions, by 
the opinions he forms of their tendency. If he thinks the pro- 
mulgation of a particular form of religion to be so dangerous 
and so contrary to Scripture that he will not, as a master of a 
family, and as a father or brother, place those dependant on 
him under its influence; is he, in his public capacity, to secure 
its being taught to thousands of his fellow creatures, for whose 
well being he is responsible as a member of the Government which 
should have a parental care of them, or as a legislator appointed 
to watch their interests. 

Lewis, p. 337. 



REPEAL OF THE UNION. 143 

the Roman Catholic clergy, it would not allay the 
spirit of democracy arising from the character of 
the times, or counteract the evil disposition which 
proceeds from the remembrance of the forfeited 
estates. In short, property, and therefore in 
some measure power, would still be on one side ; 
numerical superiority, and a remembrance of being 
worsted in former contests, would be on the other. 

The Repeal of the Union is a good rallying 
point, and a good note by which to urge on the 
war; but it can only be considered either as an 
excuse for agitation, or, if seriously contemplated, 
merely as a step, and it would be a very decided 
one to a much greater object and a much more 
tremendous change. 

If a party is formed for the attainment of a 
particular object, and if they can assume even the 
appearance of controlling and influencing the pro- 
ceedings of the government and the legislature, 
there is a high probability they will succeed in 
their ultimate object, however unreasonable or even 
mischievous it may appear at the time. The party 
by which it is promoted acquire resolution by 
partial success, while discussion makes the change 
appear less formidable, 

Roman Catholic emancipation appeared hardly 
probable at the time of the Union ; and subse- 
quently it was impossible to resist it. And it is 



144 ROMAN CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 

curious to examine the means by which that 
measure was accomplished. For a time the ad- 
ministration was unanimous in opposition to the 
Roman Catholic claims; consequently, when it 
was attempted to set up the Roman Catholic asso- 
ciation under another name, during the Vice-royalty 
of the late Duke of Richmond, he at once resolved 
to suppress it. His first attempt failed ; but instead 
of giving way, he instantly ordered another pro- 
secution, with greater precautions against a failure ; 
and having succeeded, I believe no further attempt 
was made during his administration in Ireland. 
Subsequently the attempt to establish an associa- 
tion was repeated, and not being met by similar 
measures, it increased in importance and influence 
from the success with which it daringly resisted 
the government, till there was no alternative 
between concession, or the suppression of this 
formidable body which, from the increase of its 
number and powers, had become infinitely diffi- 
cult. It appears to me as if a similar process was 
lately at work, in which the same elements existed, 
though not exactly in the same way, and lead- 
ing to a similar result. 

If the resistance to tithes had been successful, 
the attempt having been suggested by the advo- 
cate for the Repeal of the Union, it would have 
increased his merit, and, consequently, his in- 



REPEAL OF THE UNION. 145 

fluence with those who expected to benefit by the 
change. No gratitude would be felt towards 
any administration who would yield the point ; 
for they might be thought to give an unwilling 
acquiescence, and at all events would be con- 
sidered merely as converts who had tardily adopted 
the principle from him who first agitated the pro- 
posal; this would have led to events the most 
disastrous, and which now appear impossible to 
be accomplished. But not only does partial suc- 
cess lead to ultimate victory, but measures appear 
less formidable by constant discussion ; and thus, 
whether they are good or bad, enemies are re- 
moved, and friends are ever gained. 

In the year 1825 a reform in Parliament 
appeared more remote than ever, and so extensive 
a reform as that which has been accomplished, 
would have been thought quite a chimera at any 
time since that at which Mr. Pitt propounded the 
subject. That measure may realize all the hopes 
of its friends ; but the most disastrous conse- 
quences which its opponents have prognosticated 
will appear nothing compared with the evils which 
will arise, when a Parliament is re-assembled in 
Dublin, to which the Commons will be returned 
by a constituency, of whom so large a proportion 
are Roman Catholics. 

If it is urged in England that the House of 

H 



146 AN IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

Lords should be forced into conformity with the 
Commons, what degree of pressure will be neces- 
sary to bring a Protestant House of Lords in 
Ireland, into conformity with such a House of 
Commons ; and, when it is accomplished, to what 
lengths will the legislation of such a Parliament 
proceed? Can the £10 householders of Eng- 
land have desired reform with more intensity, or 
did they demand it with more urgency or more 
violent threats than those with which the consti- 
tuency of Ireland will urge on their willing repre- 
sentatives every thing which may restore the 
Roman Catholic Church to what they consider its 
rights, and the Roman Catholic proprietors to 
their property ? 

What anarchy and uncertainty will all this 
create ! What formidable authority will be exer- 
cised by the restored Roman Catholic Church 
and to this, English Dissenters, and even ortho- 
dox Dissenters, are lending their aid. 

It is not a sufficient objection to say, that an 
opposition will be raised by the Roman Catholics 
who have become possessed of forfeited estates. 
They are comparatively few, and they are not those 
w T ho will have most influence. They will be dnven 
on by others, and by the interest of their Church ; 
and the utmost they will obtain will be a compro- 
mise or compensation in some other direction. 



IDENTITY OF THE CONSTITUTION. 147 

But the Government of England should be es- 
pecially careful in all their proceedings to preserve 
the identity of the Constitution, and by their mo- 
deration and caution they should avoid even the 
appearance of violating any positive right. It 
was by being guided by these principles that the 
Church of England acquired a greater stability 
than any other of the Reformed Churches ; and 
the Constitution having been for near two centu- 
ries the glory of England and the admiration of 
the rest of the world, we have been accustomed 
till lately to think it impossible that any essential 
change, either in Church or State, could seriously 
be contemplated. And this, which so materially 
contributed to the peace of the country, and gave 
efficiency to our Institutions, may, under God, be 
attributed to the respect shewn both at the Refor- 
mation and the Revolution to positive authority 
and established rights. This ensured moderation, 
and prevented any unnecessary derangement of 
existing systems. There was no appeal to abstract 
and doubtful propositions, but always to real and 
tangible authorities. The Church, in the Convo- 
cations which were the National Councils, appealed 
to Holy Scripture as the only infallible authority 
in matters of faith. In matters cf ceremony she 
merely required that nothing should be ordained 
" contrary to God^s Word written ;" and conse- 



148 BILL OF RIGHTS. 

quently she respected both the rights and customs 
of antiquity, provided they were in no way con- 
troverted by Scriptural authority. 

In the same manner, those concerned in the 
Revolution of 1688, violated the succession to 
the crown as little as they possibly could, con- 
sistently with the obligations which the unhappy 
circumstances of the times had imposed upon them. 
They assumed an abdication, from the flight of 
James II., and even gave credence to the story of 
an imposition at the birth of his son, to avoid the 
appearance of doing violence to those rights by 
which in fact the monarchy was prevented from 
becoming elective. So far as they succeeded they 
strengthened the government, and its feebleness 
at first may be traced to a partial failure. Their 
bill of rights was not like the French charter, an 
assertion of abstract justice, but an act declaratory 
of the existing Constitution 

Abstract principles are the frailest foundation 
possible for the purpose of raising a Constitution. 
There is no limit as to the extent to which they 
may be carried ; and there is no construction by 
which they may be understood. Who under- 
stands the assertion that all power must flow 
from the people ? In England some will tell you 
it is the £10 householders ; others again will say 
it is every householder ; others, that it is the mass 



NATURAL INEQUALITY. 149 

of the intelligent part of th& population giving 
expression to their opinions in some measure 
according to the interest which they possess in 
the welfare of the country to which they belong. 
Again, who is agreed as to how the people are 
to delegate this power ? 

It is asserted also that men are naturally equal. 
In one sense this is true ; in general it is prac- 
tically and positively false. We are all equally 
impotent in infancy, and we all partake of an 
imperfect and erring nature, and we all depend on 
others; but from the days of our first parents 
there has always been a positive and practical 
inequality which no power on earth can prevent. 
There has been the superiority of manual strength ; 
the superiority which industry will always acquire 
over indolence, which, by giving wealth and the 
power arising from the possession of capital, creates 
an influence which, if property is respected, may 
continue for many generations. In fact, the dif- 
ference of rank, arising from the artificial construc- 
tion of society, serves to mitigate, rather than to 
aggravate, these natural inequalities. Who would 
not prefer to bear the inferiority in which they may 
be placed by the Government of others, rather 
than submit to the arbitrary will of the strongest ? 
Who is there who does not feel that he is less 
humiliated by coming in contact with a superiority 
h3 



150 SECOND FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

created by birth, sometimes accompanied by that 
courtesy derived from a refinement of manners, 
rather than bear the supremacy of purse-proud 
arrogance ? 

The first French revolution is a specimen of 
legislation founded on abstract principles 5 and it 
is seen how speedily the rabble learnt the lesson 
taught by its philosophic founders, and how 
quickly did they interpret their maxims after their 
own fashion ; and what a bloody record was left 
of the sovereignty of the people. At the second 
revolution they seem very imperfectly to have 
learnt the lesson which the first was calculated to 
afford. , They scorned all acknowledgments of 
ancient rights ; they would make their charter 
emanate from the people, and they who have 
required so much may demand more ; whereas, if 
it had proceeded from the Crown, even if, like 
Magna Charta, it had been extorted, it would 
have the character of being final. 

Again, the French admitted no right, when they 
elected the younger instead of the elder branch 
of the house of Bourbon ; consequently they 
have asserted that the dynasty is elective, though 
the individual monarchs may reign by hereditary 
right, till a change is determined upon. Though 
the king can do no wrong, the Chamber of Depu- 
ties has deposed for one crime; and another (now 



RIGHT OF SUCCESSION. 151 

that they have determined that a whole dynasty 
may be cashiered for misconduct) may resolve 
that a much smaller offence may incur that penalty ; 
for this is the only species of treason left quite 
indefinite. As far as we can see, if anything can 
make the present order of things permanent in 
France, it will be, first, the recollection of the 
former revolution and the great ability of the 
monarch ; secondly, the proximity of the reigning 
family to the rightful succession. 

Men are familiar with the idea of a right of 
succession, and can easily conceive how the 
throne is transmitted by the same obligations 
which conveys their property to their children ; 
but few know, and fewer consider, the abstract 
principles on which this modern species of Legis- 
lation has been founded; they know, when a king 
has come in without a positive right, that they soon 
become familiarised with his imperfections, and 
they see no reason why he should not give place 
to another form of government which they think 
will meet their wishes better. 

It is hoped that these observations are not mis- 
placed. Many of the changes desired in the 
English and Irish Church have no precedent 
in English Legislation, and are founded on 
French theories or American practice ; the 



152 AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 

Americans, at their revolution, did not disregard 
positive rights and existing authorities, and, so far, 
their institutions have had some permanence ; but 
a vain philosophy was at work at that time, and 
has had so great an influence since, in that country,, 
that Washington would hardly recognise the Con- 
stitution of which he was the founder. Whether 
the original merits of the American Constitution 
will eventually be able to withstand the tendency 
to innovation which also prevails, remains to be 
seen; and the question is, can democracy con- 
tinually increase the power of those without pro- 
perty, and, consequently, perpetually diminish the 
influence of those who have property, and not 
produce anarchy ? Can you give men the power of 
helping themselves to the fruits of their neigh- 
bour's industry, and be assured that they will have 
the moderation not to use it ? The French Revo- 
lution, and the course of events in America, have 
made us familiar with violent changes; but if 
seriously considered, there is nothing attractive in 
the results. 

Let us not risk the evils that may follow con- 
cessions which, however expedient they may 
appear to them, violate rights that have been at 
least treated as inviolate from the earliest times ; 
let us not make a serious sacrifice upon merely 
the chance of a happy result- 



PROFESSIONS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. 153 

There was some excuse for the first trials on 
occasion of conceding Roman Catholic emancipa- 
tion ; the promises then made were explicit, and 
the principal declarations of the parties were re- 
corded before Committees of both Houses of 
Parliament in the most solemn manner ; and it 
was urged, in argument in the House, that they 
afforded ample security, as they went not merely 
to the extent, that the Church property should 
be inviolable ; but those who represented the 
Roman Catholic body before those Committees, 
gave it as their opinion, that it was not desirable 
that it should be interfered with. The experiment 
has failed. The parties now explain their de- 
claration in a sense quite different from that in 
which it was then understood. The hopes now 
held out are by no means equally explicit ; it is 
merely suggested, that if the Church is sacrificed, 
the repeal of the Union may be suspended. 

The real question is, will it be the interest of 
those who now agitate Ireland to yield, after such 
a concession ? I believe it will not be their in- 
terest, and it will not even be in their power ; the 
beginning of strife is said to be like the letting out 
of water ; this is true, and it is much more true 
in the case of civil strife, when you let go the 
flood-gates that restrain popular tumult, which is 
likely to ensue, when the multitude experience 



154 OBLIGATIONS OF THE LEGISLATURE. 

that they have conquered, by being taught to 
set the law at defiance, and that they have gained 
by obliging the Legislature to sacrifice the rights 
of property, which ought to be inviolable, for the 
sake of a temporary expediency. 

There is another consideration of still more 
serious obligation. While one branch of the 
Legislature is Protestant, and the same religion is 
professed by the majority of the two other branches 
(though they must not violate conscience, or at- 
tempt to coerce any man^s judgment), yet it is their 
obvious duty to lead all the queen's subjects in 
the paths of true religion, and to provide religious 
worship and religious instruction for them in those 
tenets which the Government and the Legislature 
believe to be most for their temporal and ever- 
lasting welfare. 



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